Antarctica
by orangefish2
Summary: FitzSimmons accepted a special job offer that brings them to a place where only a few people would have the honor to go to in their lives.
1. prologue

Alright, let's get straight to the point:

This story is a "what if" scenario, of what would happen if FitzSimmons didn't work for Coulson and instead decided to accept a rather special job offer. This is just the prologue and the next chapters will do the explaining on where and why they found themselves in the described positions.

I'm sorry for any mistakes, English is not my mother tongue.

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**Antarctica**

Have you ever had a moment where the whole world seemed to stop? Where you knew that the inevitable was about to happen and there was nothing you could do about it. You just stood there, unable to change anything and slowly watched your world breaking apart into pieces.

Pieces that you could stick together, but in the end, it wouldn't be the same. Just like the vase you crushed when you were a child. You tried to fix it, but after your failed attempt, the glue was clearly visible. The vase wasn't whole either. A few tiny little pieces were missing. They turned into sand as it shattered on the ground. You filled the holes with glue and it worked. It kept things together. But your mom noticed. And if you were honest, everyone would have, because that's how it is with broken things.

You can try your hardest to turn things around again, just like they have always been. But in the end, the glue will come through and you will notice that fixing broken things is not worth it. It is easier to sweep the pile of shards than to glue it. You can throw them away, and buy a new one.

Though you would always remember that one vase. The new one would not come up to your expectations because you would not be able to forget the shattered one. And the thing is, that before the vase fell on the ground, you couldn't care less about it. But now that it's gone, you suddenly do. You never cherished it the way you should have and now it is too late. It will always be too late.

There are some rare times though where the world only reminds us to appreciate those things that have always been there, although we might not have known how important they really were for us. And when the vase hits the floor and luck is on our side, it will be unharmed. And then we could finally see the beauty that we never seemed to recognize before. And every time we pass by, we would think back to the moment where we almost lost it. Then, we would think about how much it really means to us and how lucky we were to be able to keep it.

But unfortunately that was not the case here. There was no luck and there was no cruel reminder. There was pain and loss and grief and so, so many broken fragments scattered on the floor, impossible to stick together, impossible to repair.

There he was, lying in front of her, unmoving and pale, fighting the fight of his life. Alone and hurt had he spent the last minutes of his consciousness. Without her.

And as she sat there, begging the gods she never really believed in to give him back to her, she cherished him for all the things he had done for her. The things that she appreciated now that everything was too late. And as the medical devices started going crazy, a doctor pushed her aside to get through to him.

The vase was falling and about to hit the ground. Time stopped and she looked at him.

Him who she shall never tell how much she cherished him. How she appreciated him. How much she loved him.

She felt herself crumble, her legs started shaking and she sank to the ground. No, he can't. He just can't leave her alone. They were a team, they were partners. They were supposed to be together, always. And yet here she was, feeling the loneliness soak through her skin, as the doctor tried his best to bring him back to life. Back to her.

_So that's how he felt in his last minutes_, she thought as tears made her way down her cheeks.

Then the doctor took a step back, stopping cardiopulmonary resuscitation and the vase shattered into pieces.

_That's how you'll feel every day from now on._

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I know, I know. Couldn't be more angsty. But there is fluff to come, this was just the prologue as I've mentioned above! This story is going to explain how it came to this situation and will continue from this point on. It is constructed like this: prologue – fluff- angst – fluff and I don't want to spoil anything, but as a Fitz-Simmons shipper I can't just leave those two lovebirds alone, can I? These were my hints, now I am interested in what you thought about the prologue and I would be honored if you left a review for me.

**The next chapter will be up tomorrow and is already finished.**

**Thank you for reading!**


	2. Destination: South Pole

The South Pole. Fitz had always known about Jemma's adventurous mind and her dream to travel around the world. But if someone would have told him that freezing-in-September-Simmons planned on visiting the southernmost place of the world, well, let's just say he would have spat out whatever he was drinking just to laugh.

She was one who was fascinated by the flora and fauna of a country and someone who would take samples of every foreign leaf she could find. And just to be safe she always took a picture "because it's beautiful" or to "cherish it in its natural habitat". Her mobile phone's photo gallery was full of flowers, trees, leaves, bugs and whatever crumb she found on the ground. Taking a walk with her through the woods was never a short trip and something Fitz liked to avoid. He remembered that one time where he had actually suggested going camping to watch the Leonids. The walk from their car to the clearing they planned on staying took them an hour and his hands were about to fall off from carrying all the gear. Normal people would have taken about twenty minutes, but of course not them. Crumbs-grabber Simmons was busy with photographing the whole damn wood, because everything was just so fascinating and exciting. He could have used a hand with the gear, but to be honest when they started to walk he wanted to show off and told her he could handle that with ease. Little did he knew that Jemma turned into a hard-core-forest-tourist, taking pictures of everything she laid her pretty eyes on.

At least he didn't have to put up with that now. There weren't really plants she could take pictures of in the nature, because everything was covered in snow. And that was why he was actually so surprised she even wanted to go there.

Ever since they got an offer for the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station they discussed this opportunity. She wanted to go, he didn't. The pay couldn't be worse and the bedrooms were as big as their bathroom. Not to mention the weather conditions and the isolation during winter.

In summer there was no darkness during night, only daylight. But they would only experience the times of light for a short amount of time. They planned on arriving in December, celebrating Christmas and New Year's Eve there. In February most of the 200 stationary people would leave. But not them. They would stay with the last 50 others to experience the winter. The daylight would fade in March and darkness would be prominent till September. This would last for six months and the temperatures would decrease because of the lack of sunlight. They would drop below -73°C (-100°F). As if that wasn't enough, blizzards and at some point gale-force winds would most likely strike the station.

The personnel were isolated between mid-February and late October. The Amundsen and Scott station was completely self-sufficient during these times of the year and powered by three generators. A greenhouse held various vegetables and herbs that were all produced hydroponically, without any soil and only with water and nutrients. During winter the greenhouse was the only source of fresh fruits and probably the only place where Jemma could be found taking pictures of plants.

There were many different research fields in which scientists were active on the south pole. Glaciology, Geophysics, Meteorology, upper atmosphere physics, astronomy, astrophysics and biomedical studies were the most common ones.

Jemma would be busy with the latter while Fitz was there to keep the base functioning. She was also there to help out with the greenhouse. If the other two members of staff, who were actually there to take care of it, would get sick, she would jump in. But that wasn't really likely to happen.

Fitz knew that he was actually there to be the "repair man" and he only got an offer because Jemma got one too. Everybody knew that FitzSimmons was only available in a pack. So they looked for a position for him. They promised he would work at her side in the lab, but he knew that he would be occupied with repair works every so often.

If he was honest, the main reason he didn't want to go there was because his work was not needed (except for the maintaining work, of course) He didn't attend S.H.I.E.L.D academy to repair broken doors or generators. He was an inventor for god's sake. An engineer.

But Jemma wanted nothing more than to grab this chance and was eager to work there and before he knew what was happening he was packing his things too. The idea of her going alone, was not something he liked. He already missed her whenever she was out more than ten minutes and he didn't want to know how he would feel if she would spent her days alone on the south pole, isolated for months.

So although he detested this journey, he accompanied her. For the sake of his own sanity and her safeness. He did it for her and if it meant to freeze his arse off, well then he would do so.

But just to be safe, he had purchased two hand warmers to put in his pockets. If his hands or said butt would suffer from the cold, well, he was at least prepared.

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The facts about the south pole should be true, I found them on Wikipedia. (But since it's the internet you never really know if it is^^)

The next chapter will be up tomorrow or the day after, it's almost finished. Being stuck in a leg cast really provides me with a lot of time. There goes my summer, yay^^ Anyways, I enjoy writing so at least I spend my time doing something I like.

Thank you for reading and reviews are very much appreciated! You hold a very special place in my *people i owe a thank you shelf*. And I am not a Lannister, but I do try to pay my debts. (for all the GOT fans among you)


	3. leaving home

**I don't own Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. **

**Leaving home**

He was overwhelmed by a bad feeling that he had had ever since they decided on going there. But when he and Jemma stepped on the plane that brought them to their new work place, it got worse.

When they were packing, he had told Simmons about it. She had raised an eyebrow at him, trying to figure out what the hell he meant.

"I always thought you were a man of logic. Never took you for one who trusts his gut feeling" she had said teasingly, not taking him seriously.

"I am not joking Jemma. I don't think we should be going. We should stop packing right now." He had answered, throwing his already packed trousers out of the bag.

Baffled, she had continued folding her T-Shirts, huffing at him. "I am not going to stop packing only because you have a bad feeling, Fitz. You just hate change and that's why you're trying to make me stay, but that's not gonna happen. We already accepted the job offers and by now all the arrangements regarding our arrival are made. There's no going back now. If you wanted to stay, you should have told me earlier on, but you never did."

He knew that she had been right. There was no going back now. Not back then, and even more so now. He could jump off that plane, but it would wait for him to get back inside. He was just scared to leave, Totally isolated for months out in the cold. That was not something he was looking forward to. Simmons on the other hand couldn't be more enthusiastic. Once they (she technically) had decided on going there, she switched into hard-core-preparation-mode, spending hours in front of the computer, doing research. She told him about a women, the station manager back in 2011, who suffered from a stroke during winter season. The medical equipment of the station was not sufficient to evaluate the whole damage and the poor woman could not be moved somewhere else, because of the winter isolation and the dangerous weather conditions. She was brought away with the first flight available in October. (She had experienced the stroke that had resulted in loss of vision and cognitive function in August and waited ever since for medical aid)

He couldn't think of anything more frightening Jemma could have told him. That poor woman had to wait almost three months for rescue. She did make a full recovery in the end, but that could have turned out very differently as well. Every time he thought about that story, it gave him goose bumps and he asked himself why someone would ever want to go there. Jemma didn't really realize that she only frightened him even more than he already was. She was lost in tales from the cold south and seemed to absorb every detail, howsoever small it might seem.

She even found another horror-like story for him. Another woman, a physician this time, discovered during the winter isolation that she had developed breast cancer. She had to operate on herself to extract tissue samples for analysis. A military plane later dropped off medications and equipment despite the strong winds. Her condition was life-threating and remained so until the first plane was able to land at the station in spring. (Several weeks earlier than normally) The weather conditions were adverse and the travel back couldn't have been more dangerous. Eventually they made it though. Jemma was fascinated by the bravery of the women and he was even more terrified. Why did she even tell him things like that?

But when she had looked at him with those adorable, glittering brown eyes after telling him about the woman, he smiled, despite the horrifying feeling inside of him.

And when she had bragged about this great possibility, back then when they hadn't decided yet, he recognized her look of determination.

"Fitz, this is the perfect opportunity for us. I know the pay is bad, but this is going to be so exciting! I always told you I wanted to go on an adventure and you always said you'd come with me. Only few had the privilege to actually be at the South Pole. To literally stand on the southernmost place on earth. How many could say that? Besides, we are not walking through any forests, so you don't have to complain about me taking any pictures" she told him with pleading eyes. _Please come with me_, they had said. _I don't want to go without you._.

He had kept his mouth shut, holding back from spilling out his fears. He already knew that her mind was set. If he tried to convince her to stay, she would tell him that he didn't have to go. That it was okay if he stayed behind. She would miss him, he knew that, but she'd get by.

Fitz was also aware of the fact that he'd go crazy without her. She had been the one, the only one here in America, who cared about him. Who understood and cherished him for who he was. She might not like him the way he liked her, but he didn't care. He needed to know if she was safe and he couldn't stand to be alone for so long.

So he had said "Alright". They'd go.

And that's how he had ended up on this plane to the arse-end of the world. He wondered though, if he had told her about his fears, not just the 'bad feeling', if she would have really left. She was the most loyal person he knew and leaving him behind was not something she would do easily. He didn't want to take that risk though, nor did he want her to know how scared he really was.

She was a girl and didn't seem frightened at all, so he shouldn't be too, right? But that didn't really help though. He lacked her enthusiasm and her adventurous attitude. He was a coward and even afraid of admitting that out loud.

So he ended up saying nothing, smiling whenever she told him those terrifying stories, because he didn't have the heart nor the courage to tell her the truth. He didn't want to be the one to destroy her dreams, nor the one who made her go alone. They were friends, best friends. They took care of each other, made sure that the other one was safe and alright. That was not something he could do while being miles apart, on two different continents, so, well you see, the situation was kind of complicated and unsettling. In the end he decided on accompanying her, because he was more frightened to be left alone than travelling to that cold hell.

They would arrive in the peak of the summer, with an average temperature of about -26.5°C (-15.7°F). The record high was -12.3°C (9.9°F). It would not get any warmer. No, they were supposed to stay over winter and when the sun would set in March, it would get even colder. The record low was at -82.8°C (-117°F).

Oh, yes this was surely going to be amazing. While others said they were "going south for vacation" and spent their time at the beach, surfing and tanning in the sun, Jemma and he would experience the longest and coldest night of their lives. Although he was a scot, he was sure that he'd never get used to the cold.

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**The story about the two women is true. The incident with the woman who discovered the cancer, took place in 1999. Once she was brought to a medical facility the cancer was treated, but unfortunately it came back and she died in 2009.**

The next chapter should be up in two days at the latest.

Thank you for reading!


	4. Craving for good mood or food

**Craving for good mood. Or food. **

„Fitz, would you please stop making this narky face."

"I would if I could, but I can't so I shan't" he answered, his forehead covered in wrinkles.

"You're supposed to say only the first part, the second phrase should be answered by a second person" she pointed out to him while they were walking along the aisle to the cafeteria.

He clicked his tongue, something he tended to do whenever somebody was getting on his nerves. It wasn't anything he did on purpose, it just happened. It prevented him from saying what was really on his mind and right now, that were only impolite and sarcastic answers to her annoying comment.

But Jemma knew him better than anyone and could instantly tell his mood. She snorted and grabbed his arm pushing him against the wall so they were face to face. Just inches apart…While she was shouting at him, he was pressed against a picture on the wall.

The whole aisle was full of photographs of people who had once been on this station and he wished that it would have just been an empty, boring aisle instead. Jemma was strong whenever she was angry and had pushed him with force against one of the pictures so that he was sure he would wake up with a bruise the next day.

_Great thing. As if the beds weren't uncomfortable enough, now I won't even be able to sleep on my back. _

"I've been trying, really trying to indulge your every whim ever since we stepped on that plane. It's been two days and I swear I can't endure this any longer. Fly back home or find a way to act like a normal, mature person instead of behaving like a teenage girl on her period. Until then, I'm going to ignore you." She said and let go him, walking away.

"Well that's really mature of you, Simmons" he called after her and heard a loud scoff before she disappeared through the door of the cafeteria.

He sighed, sliding down the wall, sitting on the floor.

Unbelievable. He was only here because of her and all she could do was complain. _Well, sorry if I annoyed you with my kindness. I was only trying to keep you save, _he thought as he tapped his fingers on the ground impatiently. This place sucked and he didn't like it at all.

Yes, he had to admit that it was pretty well equipped, but that didn't really change his view. When he thought back to their first tour around the station, all he could remember was Simmons's overly excited face and her wide smile that seemed to grow wider after every room they had seen.

"_Oh look Fitz, they have a sauna! A sauna, Fitz! Isn't that exciting?"_ – he had shrugged his shoulders, answering: "I really don't get why you are so excited about that. You were the one who had to tell me all about the bacteria housing there. Why would I want to go in there after your disgusting sauna speech?"

"_Oh, what a wonderful view we have from our rooms. That's just great" _–  
"It's only a window, Jemma. You know where we have that too? At home. In our apartment. Where we have our own bathroom and don't have to walk five minutes to get there."

"_A reading room, what a wonderful idea!" _ –  
"Really what is the necessity of this? I don't need an extra room for reading; I can read anywhere I want to"

"_Now that's just marvelous. A billiard table and a bar!" _To this he didn't actually say anything; he had tried his best to hide his impressed face.

In the "movie room" she clearly seemed to have lost it and he thought that she might get a heart attack from all the enthusiasm and excitement. _ "Look at all these movies! I know where we'll spend the next few nights now. I have never seen so many DVD's at once. How many do you think are there? I guess about 200 or 250. " _–  
"Don't know. Don't want to count them all…And it's not like we couldn't watch these online anyway…"

As he thought back, maybe he was kind of… narky. Okay, kind of was an understatement. He had been unbearable and the fact that Jemma had been able to endure him like that for two days was actually quite remarkable. She was way too nice.

He sighed again, getting up to follow her in the cafeteria. _Can't wait for her "I knew you'd come around face" , _he thought as he prepared an apology for her. _And if she keeps up this excitement trip, I think I am going to be ill for a few days, 'till she comes down from this south pole drug she ingested. _

When he found her in the galley, he sat himself in front of her, slumping into the chair. Jemma raised an eyebrow at him, preparing herself for a heated discussion as he murmured a quiet "Sorry."

He knew that this wasn't really a good apology, but it would have to do for now. He was hungry and not really in for conversation and the one he had thought of, wouldn't sound really convincing right now. He still felt like, what did she call it again?

Ah, right. Like a teenage girl on her period. If they really felt like that every month, than he was glad to be a guy. Not really a manly one, however, but as long he didn't have to endure this mood once a month, it didn't really bother him.

Like always, Jemma was able to read him like a book and pointed behind him to show him where to get his food. Despite his poor excuse, she seemed no longer mad, though she tried to keep her face stern.

"Take the chocolate pudding as dessert. I heard that it should lighten up your mood on bloody days" she said, trying her best to sound angry. She couldn't hide her smile though, Jemma had always been bad at pretending. He knew that she clearly wanted to stay mad at him, but failed because she had already forgiven him. She might not admit that, but she didn't have to. He could see right through her, just like she could read him like an open book.

So he shrugged his shoulders, not wanting to say something impolite to get on her nerves again and walked away to get something to eat.

He came back with a mountain full of food, including two big portions of pudding. He grinned at Jemma as she looked up at him confused, thinking that he wanted to eat all that alone. He was known to be able to consume quite a bit, but it seemed like that appeared to be a lot, even for him.

"Just thought that if you had to spend your time with a grumpy person, you'd need something to lighten up your mood too." He said and gave her a pudding.

This time, she didn't try to hide her smile.

_Smooth. Seems like the bomb is defused entirely now_, he thought as he grinned back at her and started eating.

* * *

Hope you enjoyed this chapter and grumpy Fitz. Poor Simmons! But then again, I wouldn't be able to stay mad at Fitz for too long either. Especially if he'd bring me pudding.

Anyways, the next chapter will be up in about three days, possibly earlier. I already have finished a part and now I am waiting for inspiration. Thanks for reading!

Oh and the mentioned rooms are for real. I watched a tour on youtube they all exist. They even have a gym with a big screen and a Fitness room xD And there actually are a lot of pictures on the wall too.


	5. Pictures and tea buddies

**I reread this chapter a few times, but at some point my brain gave up, so I'm sorry if it's a little confusing. I was confused too and rewriting it didn't help me either. Hope you enjoy though! **

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**Pictures and tea buddies**

„Ready?" she asked and Fitz nodded. He got into his photo pose that he had trained in front of a mirror. His nose was sticking out in the air while he was looking up and grinning goofily. His hands were folded as if he was holding a sword that he planned on photo-shopping there once the picture was taken.

"Alright, say cheese" Jemma shouted over to him. The winds were strong and it was hard to understand what the other one was saying due to the few meters distance between them.

"I am already smiling, Jemma, I don't have to say Cheese" he yelled back at her, coughing as the wind had blown snow into his mouth while talking.

"Now I have to take it again, you were coughing!"

"I got snow in my mouth, because you made me talk." he pointed out, getting back in pose.

"Just hush, it's freezing here. Stay still and don't. Answer." She shouted back and took another picture.

_Her photographing talent seems restricted to bugs and leaves. Well, my glory_**_is_**_hard to take in. Especially in this goddam storm._

"How did it turn out?" he asked impatiently, as ice kept clutching against his cheek. He stayed in pose though, in case she had to take another picture.

"I really can't see anything here, let's get back inside. My fingers are falling off" she shouting over to him, handing him back his phone as he ran up to her. "The wind is getting stronger"

He nodded, stuffing his mobile phone away safely. They walked back to the station at a rapid pace, the snowstorm getting worse every minute. Once they were inside, he craved for a warm shower and a hot cup of tea.

"We'll go back there another day. When the weather is better" she said, as they walked up the hallway to their rooms.

"Wouldn't want to go out there again anyways." He answered, embracing the warmth of the station. When they arrived at their rooms, they decided to meet up later. The hot tea would have to wait; his toes needed to warm up now and were already looking forward to the shower.

And tea times were reserved for Simmons anyway. _Once you've found a tea-buddy, you better not drink with anyone else or alone. Those were the rules._

Though this whole "tea buddy" thing had been a big misunderstanding and really embarrassing, he still kept his words and drank his tea "loyal". Her teas tasted better than his anyway so he had no problem with that.

This rather strange habit goes back to their academy days, both being young and naïve and alone in a rather complicated world. They had just met a week ago and she had jokingly said that they were "tea buddies" now, as they were slurping their third cup after their first meeting. When he asked her what that meant, Jemma had told him that from now on they were only drinking tea together and with nobody else.

At first he didn't even get that that was only meant as a joke. Sarcasm seemed to be something Jemma had to learn to emphasize, because when she had made this rather strange proposal, he had had no idea she was just kidding.

Back then, he had thought that she had been serious. He believed it was a thing in the small English town she came from and that that was some kind of "pre-relationship-agreement" . He obviously lacked experience with girls, always being the youngest wherever he went, so he had had no idea how they really ticked. He hadn't even thought that it was awkward to suggest something like that.

A few months after, he brought the topic up again, asking if it was okay if he drank tea with his mother in England, when he returned home for Christmas. Jemma had looked up at him confused and asked him what the hell he was talking about.

"Well, you said we were only to drink tea with each other from now on. And well, I just wanted to know if it was okay if I drank one or two cups at home with my mom."

He will never forget the way she looked at him that day. It was a mix of amusement and disbelief and it had been followed by a roar of laughter which made her spit out the water she was drinking. This was definitely in the top ten of his most embarrassing situations. Every time he thought about it, his cheeks still turned crimson red.

And although he now knew that she had only tried to tell a joke, he had remained faithful. The only time he broke that oath was when he visited his mother.

* * *

When he arrived back at his room, or should he say bunk, 'cause you couldn't really call that a proper room, he heated up the water boiler so that when Jemma came to visit, they wouldn't have to wait. "Preparation is the key to everything", she always told him.

_Dear god, that girl is clearly starting_ _to infiltrate my thoughts._ _Not long until I am collecting bugs and beetles myself._ _At least I will never touch a cat's liver voluntarily._

After about ten minutes, Jemma finally arrived and she poured them the hot water into their cups, placing the teabag in it.

"I really don't know why you think my tea tastes better than yours." She said and held the cup to warm her fingers "I do exactly the same thing as you"

"It always tastes a hint better" he told her, blowing a few locks out of his face.

She shook her head and smiled, sitting down right next to him. "I bet you are just too lazy and don't want to admit that" she teased, bumping his shoulder and accidently spilled a bit of the tea. "Oh sorry" she said and examined the stain it had made on her shirt. "Have you looked at the pictures yet?" she asked as she finished the examination.

"No not yet, thought we would do so together." He answered and grabbed his mobile phone. "Now, who do we have here?" he laughed and showed her the picture he had taken of her before. Her scarf was wrapped around her whole face so that only her nose was sticking out.

"Why didn't you tell me that I looked like a bloody bank robber? That's not a picture I can send home. No one would even know if that was me or you…that could be anybody … And what the hell am I doing with my arms?"

"As if I'd wear a purple jacket everyday" he murmured and laughed at the next picture. She had tripped and he had caught her mid-flight. "Now that is a picture full of action. How 'bout you send your parents that one?" he teased.

"You saw that? I thought you didn't notice because I didn't hear you laughing"

"I was, actually. The wind just covered that up for me…. Didn't think the photo would turn out that good though" he answered, still smiling broadly. "Your face is priceless. Thank god your scarf slid away to reveal your face."

"Hey! Now how about we make you fall over while I photograph you and then we'll see who looks better." She said, forming a big pout with her lips.

"Relax, you look just fine" he answered, while blushing slightly. "Now let's see how my Game of Thrones interpretation of Ned Stark turned out."

Jemma just shook her head. "That should have been Ned Stark? I'm sorry to disappoint you, but you failed miserably at that. You would have needed a sword and some fur covering your shoulders. And well, a beard…Besides Lord Stark is from the North, not the south. "

" Why do you always have to be such a spoilsport, Jemma? I planned on photo shopping a sword in there afterwards. And then I would have written 'Brace yourselves. Winter is coming' below"

She laughed her adorable smile and shook her head again. "You would still be standing beside the sign of the geographical _south pole_ and you'd still miss the beard." She teased and this time he was the one who pouted.

"Hey it's not my fault, I shaved yesterday! I can't grow a beard in a day!" he defended himself. Actually he had last shaved four days ago, but she didn't have to know that.

"It's alright, I was just joking. Besides, if you'd have a beard I wouldn't get to see your cute dimples every time you laugh" she said and he had to hide his flustered expression. "We'll go there again once the storm is over then we'll make proper pictures. No bank robbers, no tripping"

"And I'll look for another pose to make. I just hope that we get to make our picture before sunset. If the weather stays like that, we'd have to take them at night."

"There's still a few months of light left, sunset won't be until-"

"March, I know" he interrupted and took a sip of his still hot tea.

"But we have to take two. One picture on the geographical and one on the ceremonial South Pole."

"Yeah, the geographical pole is boring anyways. Just a white stick popping out of the snow… " he said and thought back to it. He really had imagined it a bit more exciting. But there was still the ceremonial South Pole that had been set up for taking photos anyway. He would take his special photo there. Now he just had to find the right pose to make.

"True." She answered and opened a bag of cookies that she had taken with her. "Hey I thought that we could check out the community room and the bar tonight. And afterwards we could watch a movie, if you want to. We are free until the day after tomorrow, so we don't have to worry about getting up early"

"Sure why not. But right now the one thing I desire the most is one of those cookies." he said and looked at her with pleading eyes.

She laughed, handing him the bag over. "If I wanted to eat them alone, I wouldn't have brought them here anyway" she said and leaned back on the wall. "Besides, I wouldn't want all the crumbles in my bed."

He stuffed a few of them in his mouth, for once being glad that he'd come with her. As Simmons sat beside him, her shoulder touching his, he suddenly didn't mind the size of his room anymore. And if she would fall asleep during one of their late-night conversations about all and sundry like she had tended to do at the academy, well let's just say he wouldn't complain about his bed being small any longer.

Maybe this place wasn't so bad after all.

* * *

There are actually three south poles. One is the ceremonial south pole, which has been set aside for photo opportunities and marked by a red and white striped stick with a metallic sphere on top of it. The area is surrounded by the flags of the Antarctic Treaty signatory countries and it is only a short walk from the geographical South Pole, which is the southernmost point on earth. If someone would stick a pole all the way through the planet along its axis of rotation, it would poke out the bottom at the geographic south pole. There all the lines of longitude converge in the southern hemisphere.

The third pole is the magnetic South Pole. That's the point your compass points to. It moves northwest toward Australia at 10 to 15 kilometers (six to nine miles) per year, because of the magnetic field generated by the rotation of Earth's fluid core, it doesn't always stay in the same place.

The marker of the geographical south pole, the white stick Fitz was talking about, must also be repositioned every year because it travels about 10 meters (33 feet) every year (due to moving ice sheets)

**The next chapter will take me longer, because I won't have time to write the next few days. I guess it will be up sometime next week, probably Thursday or Friday.**

**Thanks for reading, i hope you enjoyed it!:)**


	6. The lap incident

**Sorry for being late with my updates, this chapter has been a pain in the neck! But without further ordeal, here it is: **

**Disclaimer: I don't own Agents of Shield**

* * *

**The lap incident **

Do you remember the first time you fell in love? I mean an utterly breathtaking, all-consuming kind of love, not just a simple crush.

A love where you just needed to look at each other for nothing more than three seconds and in that time, everything around you wasn't important anymore. No problems, no worries. You wouldn't even notice anybody else; it was just the two of you. It was only three seconds, but it seemed to be a lot longer.

You may have been face to face with each other or separated by hundreds of people. But in this fraction of a second you belonged to your special someone and your love belonged to you.

And then, when you were about to finally spill out the words of truth that you so longed to say out loud, you stopped yourself and bit your tongue. You may have gotten out a few words, but you didn't speak on. The three seconds were over, the people around you were suddenly there again. Just as your worries and your problems. They came back haunting you again and the attention of your love was gone.

* * *

Fitz has had many of these moments, and had lost count on the times where he wanted to tell Simmons everything. He didn't know when his platonic feelings stopped, they just did. Maybe he had always felt like that towards her and just didn't realize it. Perhaps it started when she seemed to show interest in other guys. He couldn't tell and it didn't matter anyway.

Sometimes he had wished to switch his feelings towards her off so he could just be her platonic and not-in-love-with-her best friend Fitz. Everything had been easier before. There had been neither jealousy, nor an awkward silence after she asked him which girl he was interested in. No imaginations during work and no thoughts concerning the what-ifs of what could happen if he told her the truth.

It took time to accept the fact that he was in love with her. He would never be able to just look at her without thinking that she was pretty or how her eyes lit up every time she laughed. He would never be able to just ignore her adorable dimples when she smiled, without trying to make her laugh again, just so he could enjoy them once more. He would never be able to stop feeling jealous every time she talked to a guy. These were just a few examples of the many things that bothered him.

But it was love and well, it's hard to ignore and even harder to live with. Loving something so out of reach, was nothing rewarding. It's like dreaming of owning a plane. You can look at it from afar; adore its beauty while somebody else is flying it. (Well except you happened to win it or had the money) An average person could save everything he owned, and would still not be able to afford one. And as it happened to be, he was this average guy I am talking about. No flying license, no plane and no Jemma.

As time passed, he was able to find a way to live with it. Actually he didn't really have other options. He sure as hell wasn't going to confess it to her, nor would he be able to leave her in order to forget her. He was addicted, kind of. Every minute was precious with her, and he lived according to the motto of Captain Jack Sparrow from the Pirates of the Caribbean movie. _Take what you can and give nothing back. _

Well, that only concerned the moments with her. Of course he would "give back", he only kept the memories he had collected over time somewhere safely hidden, like a treasure chest.

He always made her breakfast, and on Sundays he would make her his famous pancakes. He would invite her to dinner from time to time or drive to the bakery to buy her one of those filled muffins she so loved. Sometimes, very rarely though, he would try to cook dinner. He wasn't a good cook; the best he could do were noodles and a tomato sauce. Jemma normally took care of that and every time he tried to cook, she would help him despite his loud protests that he could do this on his own. He was glad though to be honest, he might not admit it, but he could use all the help. He was more the baker. Birthday cakes and cookies were easy-peasy, just mixing a few ingredients together and putting it in the stove for a specified amount of time. But as far as cooking is concerned, he was a goner as soon as it involved more than boiling water.

To get back to him being in love with her, the accepting thing was the first step, but it would never be enough. It simply just saved him time. He would not ask himself why it was bothering him so much that she was trying to flirt with another guy or why he wanted to just drag her away when it happened. But that was about it.

Because in all honesty, he knew that his love would not fade and not even weaken. These feelings inside him were too strong. He wished he could just cut the wire, but whatever knife he pulled out, no matter what size, the string of his feelings emerged unscathed.

* * *

So when this guy, Tyler was his name, disturbed their conversation about their movie plans in the community room to recommend one, he saw the look on Jemma's face. She rarely had an expression like that, but whenever she did, alarm bells started ringing in his head.

It was her ogle-drool look that she usually only had when looking at one of those muffins he sometimes bought her. And whenever she happened to stare at somebody else like that, he didn't know what to do. So he just froze like a statue, watching her embarrass herself as she tried flirting with that guy.

Tyler suggested watching this movie together and Jemma happily agreed.

"You two won't mind me, won't you?" he said and looked warily at Fitz, probably to see if he and Jemma were a thing. "I actually wanted to watch it yesterday but after work out I was too tired. I didn't want to interrupt your date or anything."

_Oh of course you were in the fitness room. And of course you had to mention that. _

"Oh no, we are just friends, nothing more. And we were actually unsure of what to watch in the first place, so it's alright. You'd spare us the discussion" she answered eagerly.

_Just friends. _Yeah, that pretty much felt like a punch in the stomach every time he heard her say it, but by now he got used to it.

Tyler breathed out with relief and Fitz told them he'd get the snacks as soon as he disengaged from his statue like position.

When he came back from the kitchen where he had put the popcorn into the microwave, the two of them were already sitting in the movie room side by side on the couch.

_Why doesn't she jump right onto his lap?_, he thought as he saw how close they were to each other. When he popped himself next to Jemma, he said: "Wow, am I stinking or why are you guys sitting so far away from me?"

Simmons got all embarrassed, just like he hoped she would, and slid a little bit away from Tyler, her cheeks crimson red.

He smiled, proud of this tiny achievement as he began eating the popcorn in his hands. Tyler clicked play on the remote and then the film started.

Unfortunately Fitz couldn't catch one bit of it. He didn't even know what it was called, because he was busy checking out if that guy left his hands right where they belonged. Tyler seemed to have perfected the art of gliding closer without making a sound, but he didn't foul Fitz.

So when he came back from a fake-toilet visit, a risk that he had to take, he planned on edging both Jemma and Tyler aside. He stepped in front of them and turned around, letting himself fall right in-between them.

But that didn't go as planned. He landed on Simmons thigh, his head bumping into her chest. She squealed, he squealed and Tyler tried to fight off his legs that were kicking him during his shriek. Totally unintentionally of course.

_Guess he didn't learn how to avoid kicks from an engineer during his day long workout. _

"What the hell, Fitz?" Jemma spoke up first as soon as the shouting had stopped.

"You were sitting on my spot" he said without thinking and sat up again, facing her.

"In your spot? I was sitting there all night" she pointed out loudly.

"Well, technically yes" he admitted, trying to get out of this turmoil. "But I wanted to change seats because mine was uncomfortable"

Jemma raised an eyebrow at him, not knowing if she should be mad or not. "So why didn't you just say so?" she asked.

_Damn, she's good. _

"I… I didn't want to interrupt you" he answered, still having his back on Tyler who now seemed to be alive again.

"And so you thought you would just… jump on our laps instead?" the guy asked, rubbing his neck.

"Well… Guess that didn't really work out the way I wanted it to" he said and sat down in his spot from before. "Sorry" he breathed out, forcing out a dimpled smile at Jemma.

_If she really thinks my dimples are so adorable maybe she'll stop asking me any further questions. _

She still looked confused as hell, her hair a big mess thanks to him, but she shrugged her shoulders and blew the loose strands of hair out of her face.

The next following two hours were spent in utter silence. He wished that he would have really gone to the toilet during his fake-toilet-visit, because now he really had to pee. But to avoid further awkwardness, he didn't get up again.

* * *

As soon as the closing credits appeared on the screen, he jumped up, excusing himself to the toilet. And because he couldn't bear to look neither Jemma nor Tyler in the eyes tonight, he just vanished into his room and wasn't seen until the next day where he acted as if nothing had happened.

He sensed that Jemma wanted to ask him about it when he met her for breakfast, but gladly she didn't. She actually didn't even ask him why he hadn't come back after his toilet-run, but maybe she thought he had gotten diarrhea or something and didn't want to embarrass him. Either way, he didn't care.

But of course she had to talk about that movie he had no idea about.

"How'd you like the movie yesterday?" she asked after she had fetched her breakfast . "I thought it was quite a good choice. But I didn't really like the ending."

"Yeah, was quite alright" he told her. "The ending was kinda long… Didn't like it either. They could have sped that up by leaving out a few scenes" _Than I could have peed earlier. _

"Long? Well… I actually think it came kinda rash" she said, biting into her buttered bread.

He just nodded, trying to find another topic to talk about. "What do you want to do today?" he asked her and already regretted the question as soon as it left his lips. She'd probably want to hang out with this Tyler guy again…

"Well… how about we try to make the pole-pictures and then we could go to the community room… There's a billiard tournament today and we could participate if you want?"

"Really? _You_ want to play billard? You even have problems hitting the white ball…" But as soon as he realized that she had left out Tyler from her plans he said "But I'd like to"

She smiled. "Well, I am bad at playing, but you're not. Besides today a lot of people are free and we would get to know a few of them. We haven't really socialized yet and I thought that this might be a good opportunity"

He nodded, although he hated to get to know so many new people at once. There was a higher chance of embarrassing himself, but at least he could disappear in the crowd if something happened.

But Jemma was right… it was about time… They would spend the next few months here and at some point they had to get to know other people. The friendly hello and good morning wouldn't do for long. It was like living in a small village. Everybody talked about everything… And if you don't talk to people, they'd start to talk not with, but about you.

Besides, he was a billiard master so the person who'd embarrass herself was definitely not going to be him.

* * *

**Alright, it's over. Not the story, don't worry just the chapter. I had problems with the ending and didn't know where to stop so that was the best I could come up with. They will be probably one or two more chapters and then I'll make the prologue happen to put some action and plot in there xD**

**And I obviously don't know how much a plane costs, but I assume it's a lot.**

**I don't know when the next chapter will be up, I haven't started writing yet… and life's kinda busy right now, but I'll do my best to upload it next week on Sunday, or following Monday.**


	7. Drunken times are weird times

**Drunken times are weird times**

That billiard tournament back then had turned out better than expected. He had played in a team with Jemma, of course and although they didn't win, thanks to her talents of hitting a ball with a stick, they did get to know a lot of people that night.

There was that rather weird girl named Sue, who would work together with him down in the ice tunnels where the heating system and the water lines were located. She had red, messy hair and wore glasses as round as a tennis ball. She spoke really loudly, because her hearing had suffered from working near the generators for too long.

"When starting to work here, the guy who was showing me around said something to me and I didn't hear it. I already asked him two times to repeat his words and, so I just nodded and smiled, believing that it possibly hadn't been that important. Thinking back now, he probably told me to use earplugs when working near the generators to prevent myself from going deaf. Guess that horse is out the barn. So always wear earplugs when you're down there, kay? I can't seem to make a normal conversation anymore…" she had shouted at him and he made a mental note to never, ever forget them.

Apart from her loud voice, she seemed to be nice, if not a little awkward sometimes. She too would spend the winter there, which he was glad of. Sue has been here for a year now and that meant she had already survived the winter-isolation once and could help him.

The guy who she had formed a team with was one of the kitchen workers and seemed quite alright too. His name was Michael. He too wore glasses and had dark, gelled hair. Fitz didn't know if they were romantically involved, if they were, they hid it pretty well.

Then there was Joshua, an Indian looking guy, who worked in the greenhouse, together with Tyler, the guy on whose lap he had sat on. Fortunately, this incident seemed to have stayed in-between the three of him, Tyler and Jemma. And it was even better that his lap-buddy would be leaving before sunset, as Joshua had told him, so he wouldn't need to worry much about him lurking around Jemma for long.

The socializing-mission turned out great, although Simmons could have drank a little less. When most of the people left, both of them stayed behind, together with Sue and Joshua. They played a drinking game that had actually no sense at all. They split the UNO-cards in four even piles and everybody lay down one card at a time. Whoever had the lowest number, had to drink.

Their rules kind of mutated and soon everybody except the "winner" of the round had to sip their shots. And while luck seemed to be on his side, Jemma lost every round, not even winning once.

And when this game found its end, they agreed on playing never-have I ever, much to his dismay. He had successfully avoided this game during his time at the academy, but it seems to have caught up on him now.

* * *

It started out simple, but then Jemma got mean. She knew everything he had and hadn't done in the past and was determined to make him drunk too.

"Never have I ever tried to learn a fictional language" she said, smirking sheepishly as he and surprisingly Sue took a sip from their wine glasses. (They had decided to skip the shots, not only because there was only one bottle of Tequila left and secondly because Jemma could use a shot-break from losing at the card game.)

"What fictional language did you learn?" Joshua asked him and Sue curiously.

"Klingon, when I was a kid" he admitted.

Then they all eyed Sue. "Oooh.. was it fictional? I didn't hear that word in the middle, I'm sorry. I thought you said additional language…to English or…whatever, I'm deaf and you all know that" she shouted while blushing slightly.

If she kept her volume up like that, he'd be deaf by the end of the night too. At least he didn't have to look for earplugs in the ice-cold stockroom then.

"Never have I ever… made out with a girl" Joshua asked, hoping for a story of girl on girl action from either Jemma or Sue, but no one drank. And thankfully he was so caught up in his disappointment that he didn't even recognize that Fitz wasn't drinking either…

"Never have I ever… been in love with my best friend" Sue said and watched both Fitz and Jemma intently. His cheeks turned red in an instant and he was grateful that they were sitting in the dark. Though there was daylight outside, not many rays of the sun reached their circle on the ground.

"Seriously, why does everybody think we are more than friends?" Jemma asked and looked at Fitz.

He shrugged his shoulders, trying to hide the colour of his face.

"I was just sensing some intens…sive…ah?...Nevermind, I forgot the word " Sue loudly answered while making a sip of her own. She too seemed quite tipsy.

Now it was Fitz's turn and he so knew what he was going to rub under Jemma's nose. "I've never stolen a celebrity's hair to analyze it"

And when these words left his mouth he knew that he was a dead man. The look on her face clearly indicated, that she would fight by all available means. And although she was fairly hammered, her mind worked on full speed. She brought things up again that he had successfully suppressed for years.

Their fight intensified every round and soon Joshua and Sue called it a day to let them "work out this tension" as Sue had called it while smirking knowingly in Fitz's direction.

But the abandonment of their colleagues didn't stop their battle. It intensified it even.

* * *

"Never have I ever… asked my cousin if his baby was adopted"

"Hey! That was… They…" she stammered, taking a big sip from her wine glass.

"Go on, say it."

"I was just pointing out that the hair color of Marco's child didn't run in our family and obviously not in the mother's family either. So I just figured that it was adopted…." She said, a regretful look on her face. "It's not my fault she cheated on him….and if I hadn't been there he would have unknowingly raised the baby of somebody else… "

_Okay maybe that was a bit too mean. She's clearly still upset about this. I'll go easy on her the next round. _

"Yeah, you're right. I'm sorry that was a bad choice for this game…" he said, smiling apologetically.

She breathed out, grinning back slightly. "Ah, never mind, it was a good one. Besides I never liked his fiancée anyway. Soooo, I guess it's my turn then." She was concentrating hard, he could tell. She had that wrinkle on her forehead that appeared every time she tried to solve a problem. "Hah, I found one. I've never sat on two people's lap at the same time."

His mouth fell open and he didn't think that it was even possible anymore, but his already flushed and hot cheeks, increased their heat. He was now burning, from the alcohol and the embarrassment.

And all Jemma could do was laugh at his tomato-red and stern face, as his mouth was hanging wide open.

"I can't believe you brought that up" he answered, rubbing his neck uncomfortably. At least he was able to close his mouth again.

He didn't want to comment that any further to avoid even more awkward tension and blurted out the next drinking invitation for Jemma straight away. "I've never made a grab at somebody"

Jemma laughed again and he didn't know what she found so funny. She was the one who turned around to wave at somebody and accidently rubbed a muscular guy's man-boob.

"Why are you laughing?" he asked cautiously, not knowing what she was up to.

"You actually have to drink too." She answered confidently. "Remember when you let yourself fall down on me and Tyler? You hit my boobs then"

_That's why it had been so … soft. _

And here he was, thinking that his embarrassment couldn't get any worse.

"That was accidental! That doesn't count" he defended himself.

_Didn't think that I'd start sweating on the South Pole of all places. _

"Yeah and I purposely rubbed my hand against that man's chest" she answered and leaned back at the sofa. Why were they actually sitting on the floor again?

"But you were using your hand! I was head-bumping your boobs. I didn't use my hand, so it was not grabbing. You do that with your hand and since I was using my head, I am grope-free." he babbled.

"Oh sure it counts! How do people without hands do hanky-panky then? They're using their head too, aren't they?" she pointed out and he wondered how they had ended up discussing things like that.

"Have you ever done hanky-panky with someone without hands?" he asked curiously.

"Well.. no.. of course not. You're the only one who got near my boobs" she slurred and then added. "How did we end up fighting about this again?"

"I honestly don't know" he said, giving in to avoid further strange comments and drank from his glass.

She did the same and emptied it. "I can't take any more wine. I need to lie down somewhere" she confessed and rolled up into an embryo-position.

He managed to get her up and dragged her back to her room, where she suddenly found the least bit of energy left and started giggling uncontrollably.

"Hey, Fitz." She said and couldn't stop sniggering. Then she suddenly rubbed over his chest, laughing like a hyena. "Now we're even."

He just shook his head, put her to sleep and closed the door behind the still chuckling Jemma.

* * *

Tiddly= tipsy and Pissed=drunk in British English as the online dictionary " " has told me.

Sooo …that turned out rather weird… Jemma's waving incident actually happened to me. All I wanted to do was to wave at somebody to say goodbye and so I turned around, doing the waving motion with my hand when there is suddenly a big, tall and muscular guy standing behind me. Really strange situation let me tell you that. But that's only the 8th place in my all-time top 10 embarrassing situations.

**Anyway, I'm not sure how long the next chapter will take me. Could be three days or a week as I still haven't started writing… but I already have finished the next four chapters after that one, so the interval won't be that long for the ones after the next chapter. (I only need to do a little proof-reading and a few corrections and adaptions)**

The ice tunnels that I mentioned earlier do exist and they are placed right under the geographical south pole. I've seen them in a YouTube video and they're full of pipes, but I don't really know what kind or what they are used for.

Oh and I learned this senseless drinking game with the UNO cards in Italy from my guest family. The only use of it was to find an excuse to drink Limoncello, I think. (an alcoholic beverage that tastes somewhat like lemons. Wasn't exactly what I'd describe as good… I prefer their wine.)

**Thank you for reading and as always, I'd love to hear what you thought of this chapter. I won't grope you, I promise!**

And now I'm finally finished with my rambling! See ya in the next chapter!


	8. The Gossip of the South

**Yes, i am still alive and ****I am so, so so incredibly sorry for updating that late.**

**My old pal the laptop has had a few issues that took me days to fix and then I noticed that the chapters that I've already written didn't really fit together anymore. So i rewrote them/ mixed them to put some sense into the story again and that also took some time...**

**Sorry again, but I'll give you two chapters at once to make it up to you! **

**Disclaimer: I don't own Agents of Shield**

* * *

**The Gossip of the South**

Christmas arrived fast and so did the New Year. It's actually crazy to celebrate a day that's purpose was to count down exactly ten seconds to midnight in a place where there was no real time. Well there was, actually the South Pole is home of all time zones. In just a few seconds it was possible to walk through all of them, because all the longitude lines come together there.

And because it would be way too complicated to tag where one zone ends and the next begins, the Amundsen and Scott station uses New Zealand's time as most visitors in Antarctica fly to and from there via Christchurch (That's in New Zealand). There are other stations though, but not directly located at the South-Pole. They are placed somewhere in Antarctica and use their country's home time mostly.

So Anyway, now that the New Year had arrived, Fitz felt quite comfortable at the station. He had found some new friends, faster as he would have thought before stepping onto the plane that had brought him there.

He hadn't met an unfriendly person here, mostly because everyone knew better than to spend the time here fighting with each other. But Fitz preferred to stay close to only a few. The others might have been friendly, but they didn't count to the people he wanted to be best friends with. . After all, that place was and would always be Jemma's. The few others were Sue, the almost-deaf engineer, Joshua from the greenhouse and the guy Sue fancied head over heels, the kitchen worker Michael.

* * *

Living there, it reminded him a lot of his hometown in Scotland. It had been a small village and everyone knew everyone. It was just like that on the station. The daily "did you know" and "Have you heard about" were practically a part of every meal or work-time conversation. Although the station was pretty well equipped and there were many different options on how to spend the day, people liked to focus the topic of conversation on each other.

There was the talk about that one couple who just didn't seem to get it together and broke up every two weeks only to make up three days after again. Then there was the unofficial couple that got together although they both were romantically involved with somebody else who wasn't staying at the South Pole. And of course the guy who had had it with at least five other women. Needless to say there were at least five desperate women who had hooked up with said guy. And then there was Jemma and him.

He knew people had started gossiping about them. He pretended to not notice the whispers when he made Jemma tea or when they watched a movie together. Or when he got caught sneaking out of her room after one of their midnight chats.

"_You think he'll ever make a move?"_

"_Is she really that oblivious?"_

"_Poor guy, he couldn't be any deeper in the friend zone than he already is."_

"_Maybe they are already a thing and just don't want to be the focus of attention?"_

"_Do you think the British way of confessing your love is by preparing a cup of tea for your secret crush? "_

Yeah, he pretty much has heard it all. Though he had to say that the last one did make him chuckle.

At first, he tried to ignore all that stuff but then he wondered if Jemma has heard the gossip too. And well, he entered dangerous territory… _If she has heard all that stuff too, then she has heard about me seeing her as more than just a friend… and if she really had gotten wind of that… why didn't she want to know if these rumors were true or not? And if others could see the way he looked at her, could she too? _

But she didn't act as if she had noticed anything. In fact, she behaved like always. _But she must have gotten the scent of it… _It was not as if the people around them were discreet when talking about them. Sometimes they didn't even bother whispering. And she was definitely not deaf like Sue…Even she has heard all about the gossip. She had told him about it during work. Okay, it was more like yelling at him in a friendly way. Her hearing had gotten better, and she really tried to keep her voice down, but when they were working together near one of the generators, the loud roaring noise and the earplugs made conversation a bit hard.

He actually didn't intend to act weird around Jemma, but it kind of happened. He hated the fact that he couldn't hang out with his best friend without having everybody look at him as if he was the new James Bond movie only because they wondered if they already were together or if he was just some poor guy being friend zoned…

And although he liked and got along with most of the residents here, he couldn't stand the looks they sometimes gave him when he was with her… This was the reason he preferred to be friends with the people that didn't do that.

Of course this hadn't been different at the Academy. But back then, he didn't have those feelings for her. Of course their friendship had been almost the same as it was now, their habits had stayed the same over all those years.

But now it felt different… It was as if every stare was judging him when he was with her. Every small movement and every word he spoke…

That's when he started to distance himself a little. At first he didn't even mean to do that… There just was more engineer work to do so that he wasn't able to work beside her like normally. And then… Then he just noticed how comfortable the silence was, no comments and no odd stares. He kind of liked it.

And when Sue asked him for help down in the ice tunnels because the other engineers had already left for the winter isolation, he gladly assisted her. He didn't even feel bad. It wasn't as if Jemma was alone, the lab here was a "community lab" with many people working there and she got along really well with their colleagues. Better than he did, because she seemed to be immune to the comments and stares.

He did see her after work though, but mostly in one of their rooms. And it was hard to concentrate, because his brain couldn't shut up.

_Did she really not know how he felt towards her or did she just pretend she didn't? And if so, was she embarrassed he liked her that way? _

Yeah, it pretty much sucked. And then she always had to ask why they hung out in one of their rooms instead of the community or the movie room. Especially when they watched a movie.

"I just don't get why you want to stay here. I've checked; the movie room is free tonight. Nobody reserved anything, we could go down now. It's much more comfortable and the quality of the TV is significantly better."

"Nah, I am not in the mood to go downstairs. It's much warmer here. See, I can roll up in my blanket and lie on my pillow while eating popcorn… And it's my bed, so you don't have to worry about crumbs. Besides, there is definitely someone who is going to join us in the middle of the movie and then we would have to explain everything to said person. It would just ruin the whole movie…"

She eyed him intently, but wasn't able to see through him like normally. He sensed that, because when he smiled at her, she sighed grumpily. She always did that when she wasn't able to solve a Problem.

"C'mon it'll be fun! No interruptions, popcorn for just the two of us and real English tea from my mother! It came in with the last flight. And don't worry, we won't waste anything… With the amount my mom sent us, we could survive three winters for sure."

* * *

That went on for a week or so, but then she started asking questions that got harder to answer every time. So when Jemma and a few other colleagues met at the gym to play dodge ball, a game he had always hated, he grabbed the chance and used one of the computers in the communication area instead of joining in. There the internet connection was pure heaven and contrary to all the other places at the station, very fast. Because of that one had to enter his/her name on a list to get access to them. But on rare occasions this wasn't necessary. (When there were some competitions going on or when, like now, half of the staff decided to play ball)

He opened up Skype and crossed his fingers that his mom would answer. She wasn't good with computers, but when he had left for the academy, he had taught her how to use Skype. It had been quite long since he had gotten the chance to talk to her, although she preferred to leave the computer turned on whenever she was home. This time she seemed to be busy though, because she wasn't even online.

And then he had to face-palm himself as he remembered the time difference. He sighed, typing in a message, telling her that he was fine and thanking her for the ton of tea she had sent him.

Mid-sentence he was interrupted by Jemma who had turned up behind him, making him shriek like a little girl.

"What are you up to?" she asked and leaned onto his shoulders, glaring at the screen.

"Apparently having a heart attack, thank you very much"

"Aww, come on that was just revenge for the time you purposely exchanged my samples under the microscope."

He chuckled, remembering how she had enthusiastically shouted out in astonishment, telling him that her sample had evolved after she had exposed it to ultraviolet light.

"Yeah, that was amazing. Took you almost 5 minutes to come down from this excitement trip. You were so eager to find out what had happened that I almost felt sorry for my prank" he said and she pinched him in the arm.

"Ouch. You already got your vendetta, no need for violence woman!" he said out loud while rubbing his arm.

"Are you finished?" Jemma asked, while reading his message.

"Excuse me? This is private material here!" he answered and held up his hands to cover the screen.

"Oh, please. That's just you writing your mom! As if I've never heard you talking to her on the phone! Besides you were just thanking her for the tea and cookies she had sent us, I could read that!"

"Yes.. Yes that may or may not be true, but there is still the possibly that I could have spilled one of my darkest secrets to her and then you would have known that too"

"Oh, please! I already know all of your secrets! So what is there to hide anyway?" she answered loudly.

"Nothing… nothing" he said and was glad that the blush on his cheeks was not visible in the dark room. Though the sun still had not set, it was getting darker every day. In a few days, the light that was still prominent these days would vanish too and the "period of darkness" would start, as the weird guy from the kitchen had describen him while handing over his dinner. "What are you doing here anyway, weren't you eager to play some doge ball?" he asked and smiled at the image of Jemma playing ball. That just didn't fit.

She laughed. "Yeah, that didn't turn out so well… I realized that I suck at these games."

"I could have told you that five years ago" he muttered and then he turned around to look at her and grinned. "You got hit with a ball didn't you?"

"I… I.. that is part of the game, isn't it?" she said, stuttering. "I was just not good enough to catch it… or to get out of the way…And Hey! I was just trying to have some fun! Unlike you, Mister-sitting-alone-in-the-communication-area"

"Oh, now I am a buzzkill only because I wanted to be a nice son? And excuse me, maybe I just didn't want to get hit by a ball!"

Jemma huffed, though she couldn't hide her smile. She took one of the chairs and sat down beside him while he tried to remember the sentence he had wanted to write before Simmons had appeared out of nowhere.

While typing, he asked with a smirk on his face: "I take that you didn't have fun without me?"

She smacked the back of his head, but the smile on her face didn't vanish. "Don't let that get to your head, getting hit by a ball is never fun. With or without you. If you had been there, then I at least wouldn't have been the only one" she teased him and for a few minutes their banter died down and none of them said a word while Fitz finished his message.

"Sooo…" he started and turned around once he stopped typing "What now?" he asked awkwardly, not knowing what to say.

"Well… I just thought I'd spend a little time with my best friend who seems to be always somewhere else nowadays."

"Oh.. yeah…Sorry 'bout that… it seems like the other engineers were all very eager to leave all the maintenance work to me and Sue. And it's not like we haven't had enough work even before their departure… There's still that minor error with the generators, then there's the heating system and the damn front door on the west side of the station. This is now the third time someone's got to repair it."

"Oh, yeah I saw the note on the door when I passed by it earlier today…. And I guess that all that means you're not returning to work with me in the lab anytime soon, does it?" She still sounded hopeful and he sighed, feeling bad about his prior behavior. She seemed to have missed him, and of course, he had too.

"Sorry" he answered and offered her a weak smile. "But we can hang out afterwards if you want to…"

"Of course I want to… it's just… I miss working with you… " she murmured and slightly bumped his shoulder. "The people here are nice, but they're not you…"

"Aww… I'll remind you of that once you're back to complaining about my work-attitude again" he answered while still grinning widely from what she had said before.

"I'm sure you will" she said and he was surprised that there didn't follow any banter.


	9. A liar's truth

**(This is the second part of a double-upload, so don't forget to read the previous chapter first)**

* * *

**A liar's truth**

„Don't you dare lie to me" his mother had once said as he came back home with his Gameboy broken. She thought he had destroyed it because he had needed it for one of his robots, that he secretly built, not knowing that the boy who bullied him in school, had crashed it.

"I am not" he had shouted back at her and his mother had looked disappointedly at him. "It wasn't me, I swear. It was this guy from school…"

"You know, a liar will always stay a liar. And once you've told too many, no one will know when they should trust you, so they just won't." she had told him.

"But it is the truth! And how can you tell a lie from the truth without prove? You can't just say I'm lying without knowing for sure."

"I do know, Leopold. You don't think I notice when you're building these things. You don't think I notice that the radio in the bathroom isn't working anymore because you seemed to have needed a part for one of your little 'projects'? Just like the TV remote is suddenly faulty? Or the blender?"

"That is no prove, that are facts. It's not my fault, mom. He just took it and threw it on the ground. I would never break it. I like playing with it, why would I want it to be broken?"

His mother had sighed loudly, looking at him intently. "You like playing with these machines too. Just as much as you liked to watch TV. And what happened to the remote then?" she asked and he could sense that he was about to get punished for something he didn't even do.

"Go to your room and don't you dare play with one of these electronic friends you built" she said with a stern voice, pointing at his bedroom door.

Sighing, he did as he was told and took the broken Gameboy with him.

* * *

When his mother entered the room later that day, she found her son sitting on the ground, trying to repair the device he had gotten for his birthday. The last birthday where his father had been there…

And when she saw that he was trying to repair the broken Gameboy, a small smile spread across her lips and she realized that she might have been wrong.

She sat beside him, watching him work as he adjusted cables and other stuff, she knew nothing about. He saw her proud stare and couldn't help but grin. The unfairness and the fight from before seemed forgotten.

"The truth is a complicated thing." His mother had told him. "Sometimes you know for sure and other times, you think you know, but in reality, you don't." She said as he seemed to be lost in his work, but then he glanced up at her, a thoughtful expression lingering on his face.

"Can I ask you something, mom?" he said, his eyebrows pressed together tightly.

"Of course, my dear. What is it?" she answered, as she turned on the light so that he would see more.

"You said earlier that a liar will always stay a liar. But don't we all lie every now and then? Does that mean that we are all liars and that we can't trust anybody? Not even the people we are closest to?" he asked as he reached for the screwdriver.

"I never really thought about that. I guess we are all liars then, aren't we?" she answered and he looked up surprised. "That was not the answer you expected to hear, was it?" she asked as soon as she saw the look on his face.

He shook his head.

His mother sighed and patted his shoulder. "You know, you are a smart little boy, Leo. But sometimes it is better to not think as much as you do. It makes you go round the twist."

* * *

Maybe it had been the cold, or maybe the isolation or possibly both, he didn't know, but as the truth about his feelings for Jemma had come out, his sanity decreased from minute to minute.

He thought he knew Jemma. After all these years together, he really thought he knew the person who was standing in front of him. But he realized he didn't. Do you ever really know someone? You can't really tell, can you? The only one you really know is yourself.

And as he thought about that, he could clearly see his mother in front of him, telling him to stop pondering.

He wished it was that easy. He was glad about his inner genius, but sometimes he wondered how life would be without all the overthinking he tended to do. It was hard to stop once you started it and he felt himself sink deeper and deeper down the road where one would end up going bananas.

She had confronted him after he had shouted at a guy in the lab while he had been talking to her. His day had already started bad, he had overslept because he still wasn't used to the ever-lasting night. His tired mind had been thinking that "it was still dark, so he could still sleep" and had left out the fact that there was nothing else but darkness here. And when he rushed down to grab some breakfast, he noticed that there wasn't anything left from the good stuff. Then he hurried down to the ice tunnels, where Sue had already been waiting for him. The power supply for the floodlights on one side of the station had been damaged in the storm last night and they were busy with trying to make them work all day long.

And when he finally had thought he could rest, somebody had told him about the damn door, which seemed to be broken for the fourth time. He had sighed and walked up to the lab that had been near, asking Jemma if she wanted to keep him company, because he hadn't seen her all day. Then this stupid guy just had to whisper a stupid comment on how madly in love he was.

This time, he couldn't just ignore it and wasn't able to hold it together. He had loudly yelled at him to just shut up and told him to mind his own business.

When he had hurriedly left, Jemma had followed him and demanded to know what the matter was. Still not being able to hold it together, he had shouted back at her, spilling out the truth he never meant to tell her.

Jemma had just stared at him, her mouth halfway open, without any words coming out. Her eyes were only two slits, just enough light reaching them to see him, while her eyelids twitched uncontrollably.

She didn't react the way he imagined she would. He knew she didn't feel the same way, but he never thought that she would abandon him. He feared it, but he never really believed she would. She had not been that kind of person. Or so he had thought.

They were best friends and partners. Roommates and colleagues. Side by side had they spent the past few years.

And yet she didn't bring out a single sentence as his confession left his lips. She got nervous, breathing in more air than she normally needed. She tried to make sense of his words, he could see that. And then she turned around, running away.

He didn't call after her nor did he dare to look through the slit of the open door. He stayed there, outside in the cold, alone. He turned back to his work as his heart shattered into pieces.

After all, he was the repair man, keeping the station in good condition was his duty. He would be done with the door in a few minutes, he could tell, there had only been minor damage. His heart, however, was another story.

* * *

sorry for the cliffhanger but the next chapter is almost finished ( I swear it this time it won't take that long^^) and i will upload it in two days at latest. (Really, i promise)

And then there will finally follow an explanation on what has happened with Fitz... though I'm sure some of you already have a guess that we're really close now. (But not to the end, just to the prologue)

Thank you for reading and if you have any suggestions please don't hesitate to tell me :)


	10. The truth behind the door

**The truth behind the door**

"I am not going to apologize for that! It's time somebody set an end to this, I can't even bloody make you a cup of tea anymore without getting a nasty comment!" he yelled as he took his gear, storming out of the lab and running down the aisle.

"What are you talking about? You're not making any sense!" she had shouted back at him, following him to the door, where he came to a halt. With all his strength he pushed against it, trying to open it.

"Oh please, don't act as if you haven't noticed anything! It's not as if they are discreetly talking about us." He said, squashing himself out of the door through the small slit he managed to open. She followed him, almost slipping when she stepped on the snow.

"You mean the rumors about us being more than just friends?" she asked, raising one eyebrow. _So she had heard about it, _he thought_. _"Is that why you've been acting so strange lately?"

He looks away and doesn't answer, so she speaks on. "That's just nonsense! People have been thinking that ever since we became friends! Why do you suddenly care about that?" she asked with a raised voice.

Instead of answering, he dumped his gear kit hard on the ground so that it fell open. This time she didn't say anything either, waiting for him to calm down.

But he didn't. "They are not just talking anymore, they are laughing at me! Every time they see me with you, they are pointing their fingers at me!" he nagged.

"You're just being ridiculous! It's just the usual comments that people always have made, it's nothing different. They are just gossiping, they don't have a clue on what is going on. You know how it is… We do that too sometimes. And what does it matter anyway, just let them talk it's not as if they are right. We are best friends and if they think you're in love with me only because you're doing nice things like making me a cup of tea, it's their problem, because they just don't know what real friendship is then."

"But it does matter to me! I can't just ignore them anymore", he answered and kicked against his open gear kit so that his screwdriver and a few other items fell out.

"Why? We always did that, what is different now?" she asked and looked at him intently.

"Because now …they are right."

* * *

Last goodbyes are rarely planned, and even less often ever known. But who really thinks before every meeting with every person that this could be the last time they saw these people. If we did think like that, I think things would run very differently.

Would we really want to leave others we love with hurting words if we knew that this would always be the last memory of them? Screaming at each other, instead of talking about the good old times, laughing and crying together?

There would be fewer fights I guess. Less, but still a few. Some would try to make peace with their enemies, some would make their lives hard for one last time.

But would you remind your parents of all the mistakes they have made? Of all the times they have failed? If you didn't hate them, I guess you wouldn't if you knew you spent your last moment with them.

And one thing you wouldn't do either was to leave your best friend, your partner and mate, without any words at all, alone in the cold.

With so many words lingering on your tongue and yet, you couldn't bring yourself to say any of them out loud.

_For how long has this been going on? _

_Why did you never tell me?_

_Do you really mean that?_

_It's alright. These are feelings and you can't do anything about it. It's not your fault. _

_We will always stay best friends. I don't know if we'll be more just yet, but we'll fix things. We always do. _

_You feel more like a friend too, but I don't know what this is I am feeling. I never really gave it a name, but maybe it is more? _

Yes, you want to tell him so much. You want to assure him that you won't leave, that you'll always be there. He didn't need to worry; you both agreed once that this friendship would outlast death.

But what do you do?

You feel your heart pumping fiercely in your chest; air seems not to be enough every time you breathe in. You promised him to go out there with him as he hasn't been around the past couple of days. Things have been strange, but you've missed him and you wanted to know why he had been acting so weird lately. You demanded to know and now you wished you would have just shut up.

You weren't ready for his answer. You had no clue. The confession he just had made took your breath away and left you there unprepared and exposed. You rarely felt like this but whenever it happened, it was with strangers or people you didn't know well enough.

He had always been the exception. The person you could address when you were left clueless. And now you didn't know whom you should approach.

So you took a step back. And another. You turned around suddenly and the next thing you knew you were running inside, storming to your room and collapsing on your bed.

You didn't even say you were sorry. You didn't tell him it was alright.

Unaware and unsuspecting that this messed up moment would most likely be the last one, you stared outside the window as the snow began to move with the wind. Dancing around in circles, in harmony. You watched it with fascination as you slowly calmed down, ready to let go of the anxiety. You could think logically again, and step by step you planned on what to do next. While you took a warm, relaxing shower, you imagined your next encounter.

How you'd approach him, and how you'd apologize. You would talk and by the end of the night, the events of the day would most likely be forgotten. You could feel it in the air, it was time for something new.

Something you never really considered. For a split second you did, the moment when he told you he never kissed a girl. You were so eager to offer yourself to show him that there was nothing to worry about and that confused you. But then he didn't go into detail, changed the topic and left you with feelings that you decided to store away. And then to be honest, you never gave it a second thought, but now that you found the box you hid years ago, you opened it and it seemed to be so obvious.

All these comments people had made, these whispers that always had been there, seemed to have been true after all. Never would you have guessed that this common-people gossip would even contain a hint of the truth, but now you found yourself here, preparing for a conversation that should have happened under different circumstances, without yelling and without you disappearing.

You smiled as you got out of the shower, laughing at yourself as you checked your figure in the mirror. You put on clothes and then you took one last glance back at the window.

The winds had changed.

But not just figuratively speaking. Their strength seemed to have increased. The snow that had been dancing around in harmony 15 minutes ago was now tossed and flung through the air fiercely. The past few weeks, you've experienced every thinkable weather condition here, but you've never seen anything like this.

And there it was, this regretful feeling inside your stomach that wouldn't be there if you'd have acted as if every moment could be the last one. You wouldn't have run away from him. You would have stayed there with him, telling him all those unspoken words that were on your mind. You would have talked all night and eventually you would have ended up in his arms, kissing him for the very first time.

But none of that happened. He was out there, somewhere. All alone and in danger.

You stormed out of the room, shouting and screaming for help.

He was out there. And you should have been too.

* * *

**Fitz POV**

Silence. Sometimes it was calming, sometimes frightening. Fitz couldn't tell which one he felt now. Probably both. Although it was beautiful to see the snow glittering in the moonlight which was the only natural source of light during this time of the year, he felt more alone than ever.

Before he met Jemma, he had always considered the silence as quite pleasurable. There was no one to argue with and no one who could possibly distract you from your work.

But ever since this certain girl had crossed his paths, he enjoyed her presence. They worked better together, bouncing off ideas to one another, helping out when something seemed off with an experiment or device. He soon forgot about all those times where he visited the lab at night so he could be alone and brought along Jemma. And when they would be finished for the day, they would head off to the boiler room or one of their dorms. It seemed like she had sucked up all his loneliness and had turned it into something better.

They completed each other, two souls sticking together. But as it seems their "soul glue" could not withstand the cold.

He sighed as he worked his magic on the opening mechanism of the door. He had no idea what would happen now that the truth was out, but he hoped that Jemma had just panicked. The look on her face clearly indicated that, though he couldn't be sure. For once he had been unable to read her feelings. She had been a few meters away from him, but it had felt like miles. And then she even increased their distance, turning her back on him, running away.

That wasn't likely for her. She was loyal, one who never abandoned a friend and one who thought that people couldn't decide which person they loved. At least she had told him once when they were watching T.V. And he always thought that if he ever had the guts to tell her, she would not leave him.

In his imagination there would have been at lot of awkwardness, but never did he believe she would go. The main reason he never told her was that he thought their friendship would change after and that they'd not be as close as before. Not to mention that his lack of confidence was the biggest thing that had prevented him from spilling out the truth. And maybe because a tiny little flicker of hope in his stomach wanted to live on instead of being crushed from her considerate words of rejection, but he didn't really admit that.

But there were no considerate words and there was no awkwardness.

The only thing left was he himself, in a place he didn't want to go in the first place. Left alone, without a clue what was going on with her, with the feeling in his guts that things would turn awful any minute.

_That's just because she ran away and because you hate being left in the dark, _he thought and assured himself that this feeling would fade soon enough, once he was inside and once he knew what was going on with his best friend.

He didn't notice when the beauty of the snow stopped glittering in the moonlight and he didn't feel the change of winds.

The only thing he felt was the need to go back inside as soon as possible, so he hurried up with repairing the door. He let out a relieved breath when he finished his work, collecting his gear.

Now he would only have to test if it opened easily again. He closed the door, leaning his back on it for a moment to rest. He sunk down on the ground, closing his eyes for a minute. Once he'd push down on the handle, the door would open again, he was sure of that.

And then he would go back inside, apologizing to Jemma for whatever the hell he had done. She would smile slightly at him; tell him that he wasn't the one who needed to say he was sorry. She would explain why she had left him there; assuring him that it was alright.

She would crush this tiny little flicker of hope, would break his heart, but she would promise him that their friendship hadn't ended. After all, he shared an apartment with her at home, so it would really be awkward if she just moved out… She wouldn't do that. No. That was just an incident out of the ordinary that made her behave unlikely.

Yes, after their talk things would be awkward, but that was Jemma he was talking about. The most faithful person he knew. And even though she had left him here, she probably had a good reason. He had dropped a rather big bomb on her to be honest.

He got up, cleaning off the snow from his trousers and wanted to look up in the sky. Although it was cold as hell, he wanted to admire one of nature's most beautiful pictures before heading inside. It was not every day that the weather was that calm. And not to mention that it was rarely possible to see the stars shining through the clouds so clearly.

But when he glanced up in the sky, snow clutched against his cheek. The slow dance of the snowflakes had stopped and now they were twirling around in the air, freezing his face.

He did not dress that warm, because he thought this was going to be a ten minutes work. So he rushed to the door, sensing the sudden change of the weather conditions.

But in his haste he slipped, falling down hard on the floor, his leg snapping loudly. His heart was racing and he had problems catching his breath again.

The wind swirled the snow around so heavily that he couldn't even see his gear-kit anymore. And that had been only two meters away.

He crawled, trying to reach the door, but he didn't get very far. The floor was ice-cold and singing the song of death louder than anything else. He'd freeze if he stayed down. He needed to move, fast!

So he got up, on all fours, feeling the coldness in every limb. He made his way to the door, looking for the handle but he couldn't reach it from this position. He tried to get up without hurting his most likely broken leg any further, but the ground was too slippery and he fell back on his knees again.

He tried it again, but without any success. The wind had gotten stronger, making this whole ordeal even more difficult and painful. Ice-cold snow clutched against his body and had made its way into his eyes, blurring his vision. But this was not the end yet. He wouldn't let it end like that, not now.

With one sudden and excruciating movement, he jumped from his knees into the air, getting a hold of the handle. Somehow he was standing on one leg, for a split second. But when he pushed it down a second later, his one foot slipped away and his whole weight was focused on the handle that could not withstand this sudden motion and broke. He fell down, hitting his head on the hard concrete door.

He tried to look for the handle that had landed somewhere near him, but the snow made it sheer impossible. His head thumped heavily, but he ignored it.

"Dammit" he shouted out, but the storm sucked up his voice. There was no way he could enter the building from this entrance. He had to find another way, somehow.

So he got back into his crawling position, slowly moving forward while swallowing down the panic that had appeared. If he could just make his way to the next door, he would be safe and sound and once he was inside he could shout for help.

So he started moving, turning left at some point when he noticed that he had no idea where the next door was. Or where he was. There should have been a wall by now, but there never came one.

He turned around, looking for light, or for some kind of orientation, but all he could see was the grey fog that had appeared and the snow whirling around him.

There was no way out. Why weren't the floodlights on that marked the entrances? Where were they? And why hadn't he stayed by the door, where Jemma would have found him easily?

All this questions came to his mind, when he noticed how tired he was. Although all his limbs felt numb, he still felt the pain in his leg. His head hadn't stopped throbbing and for a moment, he closed his eyes.

_Just for a second and then I will try to find my way back_, he thought as his hands and legs shivered uncontrollably.

But soon a second turned into two and before he knew it, he was lying on the ground in embryo position, holding onto his knees tightly. It was the worst cold he'd ever experienced and most likely ever would. Although he wore thin gloves, his hands were cold and as hard as a rock. His clothes did nothing against the frozen, hard snow that clutched against him. He could have been naked that moment; it would have amounted to the same thing. He felt every snowflake, every gust of wind that hit him. The woolen hat he was wearing was the only thing that didn't let the cold in. But that didn't matter, as his head was already hurting enough every time he moved.

He couldn't get up now, he felt it. Even if he managed to get into a crawling position with his hurt leg, he wouldn't be able to hold his head up for long.

And even if he could, how did he know he was going into the right direction?

He was trapped in this storm and if he couldn't see anything, how would anybody else be able to make out his position?

Was that really it? Was that how he would end up? As a pile of frozen limbs under the snow?

Would he get a picture on the table in the eating area, just like the other three men that had died at the station?** Or would he get a cross just like the first known man who died there?

"_Most likely as just a picture",_ was the last thought he could form before the darkness around him closed in. His consciousness drifted away slowly and he could feel his heartbeat getting weaker. Soon the only thing left would be his physical shell, covered in white, innocent snow.

But until then, he was surrounded by Silence. Calm, but yet frightening silence.

* * *

** in 2009 the winterovers chose to pay tribute to the three station- men that had died at the south pole by providing a special table for them.

Andew B. Moulder was crushed between a cargo sled and an aircraft during cargo unloading operations in February 1966. Severe ice-fog created a dangerous working condition, making it hard to see.

Casey A Jones was crushed to death by snow in January 1980.

Rodney Marks died from unknown natural causes after experiencing breathing problems while walking back to the dome from his lab in May 2000. There has been a lot of media reports and speculations about his death, some of them even called it the first murder of the south pole.

The first known man who died there was Seaman George T. Vince on the first expedition of Scott in 1902. He wanted to find his way back to the ship when he slipped. **

I have the information from soutpolestation .com so it should be correct.

**Don't worry; as you've already read in the prologue, they're going to find him in the next chapter. I have already started, but it will take me a bit longer (but not two weeks again, I promise^^) Also, the next chapter won't be as long as this one. That's actually put together from two chapters that I had originally written before and that's why it's longer than usual.**

**P.S. I don't really know how it feels to freeze, but as this is just fiction I didn't look it up, so I'm sorry if this is a bit unrealistic. But it is possible to break a leg from just slipping; I experienced that first hand.**

**Thank you for reading and a review is very much appreciated!**


	11. Lost and found, lost and broken

**Heads-up this chapter is the longest one of this story (yeah, I know I said this would be shorter, but I just didn't know where to end it^^) and I was really exhausted when I was finally able to finish it, so sorry for mistakes! I've proof-read it a few times, but my eyes didn't really see what I was reading anymore. **

**I don't own Agents of Shield.**

* * *

**Lost and found, lost and broken **

Have you ever experienced a moment where reality was both, near and yet far, far away from you?

Where you just knew that what was happening right in front of your eyes was true, because you could see it, hear it and maybe even feel it? But somehow it seemed so beyond reach and out of the ordinary that it felt as if you were dreaming?

Everything happened as if you'd have a mist in front of your eyes. The world was in a blur and the voices around you background noise. You wanted nothing more than to go back in time, to turn things around again and to rewrite the past. You wished, no, you demanded to just wake up, because no, that was just not happening. It just couldn't be. Not right now, not ever. This was something that took place in movies to random people and not to you or anyone in your social environment.

Except it was, at this very moment and that was the hard thing to accept. Although you wanted to embrace it, you really tried to, something didn't let you. The white veil was in the way, making you witness things as if you were just watching a movie on TV. You were passively listening, and though you did talk, it felt as if you were looking at yourself from the other side of the room. Your body was acting on auto-pilot and doing what needed to be done while you watched the events around you.

* * *

Jemma felt exactly like that as she sprinted down the aisle, screaming as if her life depended on it. The autopilot had taken over, and used her lung volume to alert her colleagues. A few people came out of their rooms, looking helpless and confused as they asked what had happened.

When she wanted to clear up their confusion, she couldn't form real sentences. Just a bunch of words made it out of her mouth.

"Fitz…out there, alone…storm" she stammered breathless as she sprinted back to the door where he had been only moments ago. The others followed her, a slight look of panic on their faces, but still not really understanding of what was going on.

"Did you understand what she meant?"

"What did she say?"

"I think he said earlier he'd repair the door."

"Is he still out there?" She heard them say.

Jemma pushed down the handle and opened the door. It felt strange, as if something was missing, it was going so easily, but she didn't care. All she was looking for was a figure in the storm, as the wind came rushing inside the station, fiercely clutching snow against her and everybody else.

She shouted his name, but there never came an answer. As another strong wind gust hit, somebody stepped up to close the door again. It was Sue, she believed, and she pulled her away from the entrance while asking what had happened. She explained briefly, trying her best to form a meaningful sentence.

The others listened silently, as the confusion was cleared up.

"We…We..have to find him." Jemma said determined and a few nodded.

"Don't worry. We will." Sue answered and eyed the others with a thoughtful look.

For a few seconds everyone was silent, and then the engineer spoke up again. "Do you remember what he wore so that we can spot him easier?"

Jemma nodded, thinking back to the moment where she had last seen him. Though it had been only about twenty minutes ago, it felt like a lifetime. "He...He was wearing a blue, woolen hat and… and a grey jacket. Not.. not one of the station's."

"So no vibrant colors…?" Michael asked and Jemma shook her head. Now that she remembered, she realized how thin his clothes had been. He had obviously thought that the repair work wouldn't take long and had only put on one layer of clothes. This didn't make it one bit easier…

Jemma snapped back to reality as she realized that Sue had started talking again. She had been somewhere in between thoughts and memories, remembering that only two hours ago, her world had been okay. It was funny how fast things could change…

"We'll make two search parties…. Michael, Joshua, Jemma and me will form one. James, Maria and Alex will be the other one… I will get walkie-talkies and somebody has to bring me two ropes and headlights. As for the others… inform the rest of the people and search the station. Start with his room and check the entrances first. Then expand your search to the other areas of the station and inform us when you have found him. If you see him outside, get help. Don't go out there alone. " she said and now everybody nodded. Then they rushed away, except for the two teams.

"We'll meet up here in five minutes. Dress as warm as possible, wear your snow glasses." With that the rest of them split up, vanishing in their rooms to get ready.

* * *

Michael pushed her down the aisle and into her room, grabbing her stormproof clothes that were hanging on a hook behind the door. Once she had everything, he dragged her outside again, telling her to get dressed as he rushed to his room that was right beside hers. He swiftly put on his clothes, and once he had found his snow goggles, he was pulling her back to the meeting point again.

Joshua and the others were already there and only waiting for Sue to return with the walkie-talkies. They already had organized the two long and thick robes that now were lying on the floor as everybody put on the headlights. When Michael helped her to get them on, Sue appeared and handed one device to the second search party.

"Jack from communication has a third one and will tell us if someone has spotted him inside" she said as she carefully fixated it on her jacket. When everybody was ready, they tried their best to open the door again that seemed to be broken once more. Michael used all his strength and with the help of Alex from the second search party, they managed to let everybody slip through to the other side, where the storm was already waiting for them. It was clear that they wouldn't be able to get through this door when they came back, because when the door shut, they all noticed the missing handle.

Each team formed a line and then they all gripped the rope and started walking.

The second search party went left, while Jemma's team decided to look right. For the amount of time they've had, this plan had seemed to be a good one. But as it turned out, reality was a bit more difficult to handle.

It was sheer impossible to see, the snow clutched against their bodies, hard and ice-cold, as they held onto the rope to avoid losing one another. Jemma's legs only moved because Michael, the first in line, pulled them forward. The white veil was now more prominent than ever, the snow only intensified the blur around her.

They marched in a very slow pace, the wind pressing them back forcefully while they were glancing in every direction, looking for a sign of Fitz.

She didn't really have time to think about all the possibilities of what could have happened to him, mostly because she still thought he'd be bumping into them, asking what they were doing out here. Jemma knew that this was not likely to happen, but she couldn't let go of that wish, couldn't quite understand yet.

Her brain focused on the most important thing for now and that was to spot him in this disaster and to survive these dangerous weather conditions. Even with stormproof clothing, Jemma felt every gust of wind. It was exhausting and immensely tiring, every step she took felt as if she had walked for miles.

Behind her, Sue was talking to the second search party, but the wind was so strong that it was impossible to understand what she had said.

Thankfully, it stopped snowing after a few minutes, making it easier to see and the wind strengths of the wind decreased slightly too, making it possible to understand each other's words again.

Now she could hear what Sue was saying and even heard the voices coming out of the walkie-talkie. The rest of the staff was busy searching the station it seemed, they used the same frequency as they did to inform everyone in the communication area, where the whole search was organized, what place could be crossed off the list.

Every few minutes somebody would intensify the suspicion that he was not inside.

"Not in his room"

"No sign at the entrances"

"Ice tunnels are empty"

With every phrase Jemma heard, a flicker of hope disappeared, though she still had not quite returned back to reality and believed that he'd pop up somewhere unexpectedly. But when Jack, the guy from communication piped up, she was sure that her heart had skipped a beat.

"I'm afraid he's not in the station, we've covered the whole area. He has to be outside somewhere."

It was then that she was able to get rid of the blur. The autopilot seemed to stop and for the first time in thirty minutes, she was back to the brutal reality. The thoughts that had somehow been waiting to fill her mind suddenly besieged her.

Where was he? And why was he so far away from the station? Why didn't he stay at the door, where she could have easily spotted him again? What had happened to him? Why hadn't she just stayed with him? She could have calmed down there from his confession and none of that would have happened. Why didn't she stay? They would have gone inside as soon as the first gust of wind would have hit and then they would have talked, cleared everything up….

Her endless assumptions, worries and thoughts of guilt only stopped when she heard the second group speak up.

"Prepare the med-bay, I think we found him. "

She held her breath. It seemed to take forever for them to confirm it. Were they having trouble? Was he still conscious? Maybe he was alright and just told them what had happened…But why did they have to prepare the med-bay then? What were they seeing?

Michael, who was first in line, stopped and then they waited. Fifteen seconds later, Alex's voice from the other team came out of the walkie-talkie again. "Yeah, we found him. He's not moving. We're coming in from the south entrance, open the doors for us and please bring a stretcher."

Sue immediately grabbed the device to answer. "Do you need our help?"

The answer was short and came a few seconds later. "No, we've got this."

* * *

The walk to the nearest door was easier than on the way there, though the wind had increased its strength again. When they were inside, Jemma didn't even bother to take off her stormproof clothes and snow goggles as she sprinted down the aisle to the med bay. When she arrived there, Fitz was still not here. She promptly got rid of her warm clothes, threw them somewhere in the corner and helped the two present doctors to prepare the examination table.

Then she washed and disinfected her hands that were shaking uncontrollably. She clearly wasn't that kind of doctor, but she had enough medical knowledge to give the other two a hand in case they needed one.

Two minutes later, the second search party including a bunch of others came rushing into the room. They had already opened his thin jacket to give the doctors easier access, when they carefully placed Fitz onto the table.

"Thank you, and now, everybody who doesn't have a medical degree, get out of here. We need the space. Jim, get me the temperature. I'll start with the CPR. " With that, everyone except Jemma and the two doctors, Dr. Rotkin and Dr. Klark, disappeared through the door.

"I doubt that we can still feel a pulse, this could be a state of apparent death that often happens to people who suffered from severe hypothermia. Dr. Simmons, get him connected to the heart-lung apparatus. And where the hell is Nancy?" he said as he started resuscitation.

"She called in sick today, said she had a bad headache. Temperature is about 30 degrees Celsius. (86° F). We need to increase his temperature as fast as possible" , young Dr. Klark answered.

Jemma was fumbling with the device that would later help Fitz into a stable state; her hands were still shaking while Klark rummaged around to find something to increase the temperature.

"Get…her…down…now!" Dr. Rotkin said in between the CPR. "Dear…stop grabbling…with the …heart-lung machine…no offense…but..you're…not…helping…with…these…hands" he breathed out as Dr. Klark rushed outside to tell someone to get the "sick" nurse.

In the meanwhile Jemma had given up with the medical device, understanding that she wouldn't be much of a use. Instead she looked for a thermal blanket, nervously and frantically searching through the shelves. When she finally found one, she immediately opened it and put it halfway over Fitz, whom she dared to look at for the first time since they had brought him in.

He was pale and kind of blue, his body stiff and cold. His empty eyes were glaring to the ceiling, as if none of them were here. He was far gone, everybody could tell. She closed his eyes, because she couldn't handle the void in them. This wasn't him anymore, it was just his shell that was kept alive for when his brain decided to return. If it would return again…

* * *

She didn't know how long she stared at him, but at some point she felt a hand on her shoulder, slowly and carefully pushing her back.

"We'll do everything to keep him alive. Dr. Rotkin has dealt with far more severe cases, and he managed to save them. But you need to get some rest now, okay? We'll tell you if there's a change. Nancy will be here any second, so we won't require your help. When we do, we'll let you know immediately ,of course. "

"I'm… I'm not leaving him behind again…" she whispered, and sucked in air to prevent her from breaking down. "If it was me…He wouldn't leave either…I'm not going" she said quietly, but determined.

Klark didn't seem to be too pleased, though he didn't object. He sat her down on one of the two hospital beds that were there for severe injuries and diseases. She stared at the two doctors; one was busy with CPR while the second one got Fitz connected to the heart-lung apparatus.

This whole ordeal lasted for… actually Jemma had no idea how much time had passed when they were finally able to stabilize Fitz, but it felt like a lifetime. He somehow managed to come back every time his heart stopped for a few minutes only to leave her once again. The nurse Nancy finally stormed into the room at some point, looking totally tired, exhausted and shocked and when the medical devices went crazy once more, she somehow shoved her emotions aside and helped Rotkin and Klark.

Then Fitz finally was stable and Jemma was able to move closer to him, taking his hand into hers. His eyes were still closed and he wasn't conscious, but he seemed to be out of the wood. At least for now. Still not moving and breathing on his own, Jemma was glad that the station was that good equipped to keep Fitz alive.

While she was pushing a few curls out of his face, she suddenly remembered the stories she had told him before they had come here. He had obviously been terrified now that she thought back… He hadn't wanted to work there and yet he had decided to follow her. And when he had told her about the bad feeling he was having, she didn't listen. And now here he was, unmoving and his life teetering on the brink. If she had listened to him, if she hadn't been so selfish for once, he wouldn't be in this position. This was all her fault.

"I'm sorry" she whispered with a shaking voice. "This should never have happened. I should have never left you alone. And as much as I want to turn back time again, to make things right, I can't. But I promise I won't leave you… if you'll never leave me.."

It was two or three am in the morning, Jemma couldn't make out the time from the digital clock that was placed at the far end of the room when Fitz's heart stopped again. He had given them a longer break this time, for about an hour and a half, if her sense of time was still correct. She was sitting at his bedside, his hand in hers, as Dr. Klark groaned loudly when he heard the beeping noise of the monitors. Dr. Rotkin, who had slept in one of the two beds, jumped up immediately, rushing to Fitz who was still placed on the examination table, covered in blankets and pillows. Jemma got rid of them as fast as possible as Klark started CPR again.

It was … hard to describe. Losing him again and again was the worst punishment she could imagine, but she deserved it. Every minute of it was hell, but the worst of all had been the phone call she had to give his mother.

She was keeping her feelings at bay, ignoring the pain in her stomach and the lump in her throat, trying her best to not cry. It only worked for half an hour though, and then she was sobbing again. She was trapped there, in this endless circus of being relived for a second only to return to the pleading and craving. She couldn't help much, even if she wanted to; she was so tired she thought she'd pass out every second. The only thing keeping her awake was the beeping noise of Fitz's heart monitor that went crazy every time his heart decided to stop and the tension that hadn't eased ever since she had looked outside the window that day.

This time was different though. His heart didn't want to beat again. The doctors tried and tried, but despite all their efforts, he didn't return. It took longer than the times before and for the first time Jemma could see that she wasn't the only tired person in the room. The doctors had to change position with one another more often than before and when Fitz's heart didn't start beating after the tenth resuscitation attempt, she saw the hope fade from everybody in the room. Their shoulders sank and Rotkin and Klark had a silent conversation, debating on whether to give up or not. They seemed to avoid that, though every try to bring Fitz back to life, didn't work out the way they would have liked it.

Jemma had grabbed the chair behind her, not being able to sit and calm down, when Rotkin slightly shook his head and stepped back.

She looked up at Klark, but he did the same.

"I'm sorry" she heard him whisper.

* * *

No.

No.

This was not happening. Fitz was not going to die. Not because of her and not like that. Not in a place where he didn't even want to be. She wouldn't let him.

Her mother always told her, if it is not alright in the end, then it is not the end yet. And she was far from alright now. So she took matters into her own hands and took the place Rotkin had given up a few seconds ago.

"What do we say to the god of death?" she asked, remembering the time they watched Game of Thrones together. He had made them popcorn and tea and they watched the whole first season on just one weekend. After two episodes they started a drinking game that they both had made up. Every time someone said "Winter is coming", they would drink a vodka shot. When they saw someone pouring a glass of wine, they would too sip wine. And when John Snow was called a bastard, their liquor changed to tequila shots. They ended up wasted and totally drunk after the 6th episode of the season and were lying on the ground, laughing and wiping up the wine she had spilled when she had raised her glass with too much force.

"Not today", she said breathless, continuing with CPR. "I am not letting you die, today Fitz. You hear me? Not today. Not because of me."

She would not let him go like that. Not with so many things left unsaid. She ignored Klark's words that he won't wake up again. She shrugged off the hands that were trying to shove her away from him. She would not let him go. Never again.

So she took the defibrillator and took matters into her own hands.

"Come on" she breathed out, her hands shaking as she looked up hopefully to the monitor.

Nothing. Just a steady line.

"Again, Clear" They stopped their attempts at pushing her away. The monitor seemed to have frozen, too. There still was no sign of life.

"Clear", she shouted once more. What was that, her 8th or the 9th try? She had lost count on how many times she had tried to get him back.

"Clear" she said, this time quieter. She felt her own tiredness. Her hands felt heavy and they haven't stopped shaking ever since she had laid eyes on his frozen figure. But she knew if she stopped, nobody would be willing to continue with saving him, they had already given him up.

She hadn't though. But nobody dared to say a word. They stared motionless without any emotion on display as she was fighting Fitz's death-feud.

"Clear" she whispered this time, her eyelids fluttering. She could clearly feel sleep slowly trying to take control of her body, but she didn't let it.

_Just one more time…One more shock and he'd wake up. Only one last try…_

Two big hands grabbed the defibrillator before her hands could let go of it and pushed her aside. She tripped and felt her back touch a cold, hard wall.

She sobbed and shouted and wanted nothing more than to take the device back, but she couldn't. She was too weak.

Instead she sank to the ground, crying.

Her eyelids fluttered once more and this time, she couldn't open her eyes again. The last thing she heard was the "bzz" sound of the defibrillator before her body surrendered to the tiredness and she fell asleep on the floor.

It seemed like somebody hadn't given up yet either.

* * *

**Okay that was longer than intended, that's why it took me a week to upload and write. And I had a few problems connecting this chapter with the events of the prologue and the part that i had already written that takes place after it and mixing it all together. **

The few things I found out online was that in a case of a severe hypothermia, it is hard to feel a pulse, because it is rather weak or sometimes not at all noticeable. Then the patient is in a state of apparent death, though he/she is still alive (barely). It is common to use ECC (emergency cardiovascular care), though not all hospitals are equipped for that. Then it is necessary to perform steady CPR that could take hours. If I got anything wrong, feel free to correct me, because I looked everything up in German to understand it better… so I might have gotten a few translations wrong^^ Oh and I don't really know how a heart-lung apparatus is attached to somebody, I just saw a picture of that online and it seemed to be rather complicated so I left that out. Sorry again if this isn't really accurate or feasible during CPR.

And I'm afraid but because university started this week, I'm super busy with attending lectures and finding my way around that it will take me longer to write the next part. I'll do my best, but I don't want to make any empty promises.

But I always am looking forward to hearing your opinion so that I can improve my style of writing in the following chapters. Reviews make my day :)

Also, we've finally overcome the long wait after the season finale! Congrats to us all^^


	12. The sound of life

**I don't own Agents of Shield. **

**The sound of life**

Beep.

Beep.

Sounds made their way to Jemma's ears, as she turned around in bed. She wasn't quite willing to open her eyes yet, nor was she able to tell what was going on. She didn't want to anyways, her body felt heavy and tired. She was sure that she still had time before she had to get up.

Okay she was not really sure, but she hoped to be right. She avoided the confirmation-time check; it would be uncomfortable with all the light shining back from the digital clock. With everything covered in darkness, the green led lights were as bright as the sun. After looking she'd never be able to fall back to sleep again…

Beep.

„—thank god for it. I didn't think we'd be able to-„

"Me neither. But I wouldn't have been able to tell her."

Now quiet and distant voices appeared that she couldn't quite place, nor understand. She was not ready to open her eyes just yet, her mind still seemed to be veiled from reality. But whoever was talking there should really understand that she was only trying to get some rest and leave her alone.

Beep.

"Yeah, I doubt that I could have either….Alright, my shift is over. Time for me to sleep. Your turn watching."

This time, the voice was louder but she hadn't given up on her wish to stay in bed a bit longer yet. It sounded distant and she was sure that she could fade it out the next time.

Beep.

Then she became aware of the beeping sound that had firmly kept its place in the background until now. It started to annoy her. Was it really that much to ask to just sleep another thirty minutes?

Beep.

Where was she anyways? She couldn't remember going to bed last night. Had somebody carried her here?

The last thing she knew was-

Fitz. She had fallen asleep while trying to save his life.

It hadn't been a dream...It was brutal reality.

Beep.

Her heart sped up while thinking about the events of the previous night, but the sound of the monitors remained solid.

Beep.

The doctors had stopped resuscitation. They had given up on him. She could still see their exhausted expressions and the way they had slightly shook their head when they decided to stop reviving Fitz.

Beep.

And she remembered letting go of the defibrillator. And that somebody had at least tried to bring back Fitz once more before she had drifted off to sleep.

Beep.

Apart from these beep-sounds the med bay was silent again. She was probably alone… or was she? Was Fitz still here? Was she connected to the machines or was he? She didn't dare to move. This was the moment that could literally end her, break her apart for good.

There was only one machine available… If she was the one causing these signals then it could only mean one thing. The thing she had avoided to think about, the thing that would haunt her for the rest of her life.

Beep.

She couldn't bring herself to form the words. It still felt … odd. Unrealistic and… painful.

At one point she would have to open her eyes, she knew that. She needed to get up, drink and eat, but at the moment she felt unable to do anything at all.

Beep.

She had never been so scared. Not even before, when she had noticed the storm, or when they were all outside looking for him. Hell, the moment she had first laid eyes on his frozen body hadn't caused her as much fear as she was experiencing now. She could feel her hands starting to shake again…and her heart was still beating furiously against her chest. Her neck was wet from all the sweat and she had problems breathing.

Beep.

What if he still was there beside her? What if his dead eyes looked at her when she'd open her eyes? She didn't think she could handle that. She was still being haunted from his void eyes from the day before, while he had been on the brink of life and death… But if he really was….not here anymore…she couldn't look at him.

Animals and strangers she could do, yes. But not somebody who was so close to her. Somebody who had always been so full of life and who had always been beside her.

The thought that this might not be the case anymore, took her breath away. She felt her eyes getting wet, a few teardrops made their way down her cheek, but she still didn't move.

Beep.

It was silly, but she was desperately clinging to the imagination of him being alive. She couldn't handle the reality, if it meant to not ever be able to speak to him again. To never hear him chuckle, or to look into those shining blue eyes. Or teasing him, laughing together…

Her greatest fear could have come true that night and if she opened her eyes now, she knew that she'd be faced with it. She didn't want to… but she had to.

Not knowing for sure wasn't that great either. It … didn't make it any easier. There were only two possible outcomes of this. Reality could either relieve her, or break her apart.

Beep.

So she took a deep breath and slowly opened her eyes. She was laying with her back to the wall, so she had a good overview of the med bay. Within a second it was possible to know if her fear had proven itself true. She just had to move her head an inch to see him lying in the bed beside her unmoving and motionless.

But as soon as she realized that he was the one connected to the medical device, the beeping sound turned into the most beautiful thing she had ever heard.

His heart was beating. Steadily.

Beep.

He was alive and like always, right beside her.

* * *

The "voices" Jemma heard were Dr. Rotkin and Dr. Klark, but she was still not quite awake so she only heard mumbling.

And just like with the chapter before, I have to admit that I won't be able to make any promises for the next chapter. I'm studying and preparing to move, so there's a lot of things going on that leave me with little time to write.

**I'm truly sorry about that , but I want to thank you anyway for reading (and reviewing. We all know these little guys make a day brighter^^)! I'm sending some virtual hugs out to you!**

**We will (hopefully) read each other soon.**

P.S. in the next chapter I plan on having Fitz awake again, he's been unconscious for far too long for my taste xD.


	13. Back for good

After a really long break, here's the next chapter. Hope you like it. It's been a while since I've last written a story in English (a few weeks) and when I started typing, I felt a little out of practice. Sorry for mistakes!

* * *

It was dark when he woke up. Two lit candles were all the light available in the room.

He didn't feel any pain. To be honest, he felt like he was lying on a really fluffy cloud. But his head was buzzing and his vision a blur.

Something had happened, something bad. He couldn't tell what, he just had this feeling in his stomach that something wasn't right. There were pieces of memory swirling around in his mind, confusing and distracting him.

There was Jemma with a sad expression, and Jemma leaving him after a fight it seemed. She looked upset in these tags of memory, so he assumed they had probably had a minor conflict of opinions.

But then he could also remember her soothing voice which told him that everything was alright. That _he_'d be alright.

Another thing he could recollect from his memory was snow. So much snow.

And fear. Definitely fear.

But not now. Now he was painless and warm and … what was the word again?

Comfortable. Yes, that was the right expression.

These few facts were all he could recall. Fitz was still fuzzy-headed, though his eyes were starting to normalize his vision again. Step by step, he was able to make out his surroundings.

It didn't take him long to find out where he currently was.

The med bay.

What in the world had brought him here? Though he was not feeling ill at all, he clearly was the patient here, as there were all sorts of wires coming out of him that belonged to some kind of medical devices. A few led lights and numbers were glowing back at him in green and red lights, but he had no idea what they meant. Jemma could probably tell what it was…

Jemma… She could probably tell him a lot more... Like how he had ended up here in the first place. Where was she anyway?

If something bad would happen to her, nobody would be able to even move him an inch away from her side. So why did she go away? Has she even been here?

No, no. He was ridiculous, Jemma would never leave. Never.

So where the hell did she end up? There was a spooky feeling making its way up his throat. What if she was hurt?

No, she'd be fine, he told himself. He was just a big worrier that was all.

And why was his one foot so…warm and kind of heavy again? It felt really weird, but it was too dark to spot anything out of the ordinary. The itching was uncomfortable though, but Fitz refused to do anything about it. If he wanted to scratch, he would have to sit up and right now he didn't feel able to do so. He wasn't in pain, but his muscles were tired and worn out.

* * *

There were only two candles lit, Fitz figured that it was probably night. Like, the night-night of the night time at the South-Pole. Of course there was nothing else but darkness here at this time of the year, but well, you probably know what Fitz meant. It was sleep-time for the staff, where everyone would be cuddled into their pillows, dreaming of unicorns and dragons.

So there was really nothing to worry about, Jemma would most likely just rest.

Though he wished she was there… It was booooring here. Nothing else but silence and no one around to talk to—

Wait.

Silence. Snow. She'd never leave….?

Reality hit him ten times harder than the electric shock his very first robot gave him when his was assembling it.

All the pieces were putting themselves back together again and the picture that turned out was not one he really liked.

His confession, his accident, his desperate try to get back inside. There were a lot of things that were still in the dark, like how they were able to find him out there and how long he had been lying in this cloud-floating bed. It really was nice here.

"Fitz! You are awake" a male voice loudly exclaimed and he heard some rumbling behind the glass-window where the doctor's office was.

Two seconds later, Dr. Klark appeared in front of him, smiling slightly. "Sorry, I didn't really see you open your eyes, it's really dark. I didn't want to make full light though; figured that when you'd wake up, it would be kinda bright….So how are you feeling?"

"Alright." Fitz answered silently and noticed the soreness in his throat.

"Good, good." the doctor said and Fitz could see the wrinkles on his forehead. "Do…Do you remember what …"

"Yes", he sighed. "But not how I came here… " he murmured and he had to think about Jemma again. She had visited him, these soothing words of hers… that were memories of when he had been half awake, he now knew that… So she had come back to him.

But where was she now?

As if Dr. Klark knew what he was thinking about, he said:" We knew that you'd wake up soon, so Simmons said she wanted to make you some kind of special tea…? She should be here any minute."

Right on cue, the girl opened the door, carrying two, big mugs in her hands.

"Fitz?", she asked cautiously and stepped forward a little too eager, spilling a bit of the tea. "Are…Are you …How are you?"

"Good" he croaked, and rubbed his throat. He could really use one of the cups to drink now.

She had a look of both, panic and relief on her face, when she moved closer to him. Again, she moved too fast and a bit of fluid slopped over the mug. She better not spill everything, he thought. His throat was dry as hell.

Carefully, she placed the tea on his bedside table while sucking in a lot of air to prepare herself for the conversation.

She grabbed a chair and sat herself beside him, forcing a smile onto her lips.

"I am… going to grab something to eat. You'll take care of him while I'm gone, yeah?" Klark said and Jemma nodded.

"Good, great. I'm gonna leave you two now" the man mumbled and walked out of the room.

There was an awkward silence prominent, that neither Fitz nor Jemma knew how to overcome. She still was fake-smiling, while he imagined on how she planned on breaking his heart.

Of course Jemma would never intentionally do that, but the way she was looking right now, clearly indicated that she was just thinking about a way to break him the news that she was not at all interested in him. She did after all, run away after his confession. You don't really do that when you have feelings for someone, right?

"So…So..how did they find me?" Fitz asked, breaking the silence. Clearly he wanted to say something else, but he had no idea how to start. He couldn't just throw these questions at her, could he? She'd probably storm out of the room again.

"We looked for you… When I noticed the storm… I panicked. I shouted for help and when we …. When you weren't there… we went looking for you. I don't know how long it took, but… They brought you in and we had to resuscitate you for hours… I .. I thought I lost you…" she whispered and bit her lip to compose herself.

"I'm sorry… I should have… stayed near the door, I knew that once I realized I was lost. I couldn't" he fake coughed and Jemma finally gave him some of the tea, that he now noticed was the one his mother had sent him. "go back" he finished and looked at her.

"What happened out there?" she asked and he knew that they were beating around the bush.

His throat was still sore and if she wanted to procrastinate he could as well use a bit more tea, so he fake-coughed again. Jemma immediately held the mug under his nose and he emptied the whole cup, before rambling nervously: "I slipped, hurt my leg, then somehow hit my head… crawled out to another entrance…got lost…they found me, resuscitated me and I-"

"I know what happened then Fitz! I was there!" she interrupted him, her tone being harsher than she intended to. "Sorry" she murmured. "I didn't mean to.. "

"Why did you run away?" he whispered, interrupting her, not being able to wait any longer. He wasn't facing her; in fact, his white blanket suddenly seemed to be really fascinating.

She also looked down, trying to find the right words to say. "I panicked. I… You just yelled that at me and I did not know what to do or say… I needed to think about it… I'm sorry I left." she breathed out.

He nodded, still not facing her. "So.. I guess you don't…feel the same?"

She smiled slightly at him, taking his hand in hers. "I think I do."

He shook it off , nervously saying "Yeah..that's…that's alright. I mean… you and I… that would've been complicated … we're still …friends?" he asked and for the first time, looked her into the eyes. She seemed confused.

"I meant that I feel the same, Fitz…"

His eyebrow twitched and his mouth opened, wanting to answer her. "Oh.."

She smiled back at him, taking his hand again and this time, he didn't shake it off. A warm feeling spread through him, although her hands were ice-cold.

"Well..that's okay too, I guess", he mumbled and closed his eyes for a moment. He knew she smiled that adorable smile of hers, but he was too tired to even open one eye. "Thanks for the tea" he mumbled. "And you know, for saving me…"

* * *

He fell asleep shortly after, not noticing that Jemma was still there, silently sipping her tea.

There were still a lot of things that they needed to talk about, but for now, it was enough. For now, he didn't need to know about his leg, or his head. For now, he could sink back into his dream world, where the painkillers would most likely let him experience some great adventures, without feeling his broken bone and his aching head. And with a little patience and rest, even that would fade and he'd be back complaining about the darkness and the cold again.

* * *

If Fitz's thoughts were a bit… strange, it was because of the heavy painkillers^^ (or because I was typing this after a three hours session of programming, idk)

Also, i tried my best to find out what happens to people who suffered from severe hypothermia after their resuscitation , but i didn't really find anything useful, so sorry for the lack of medical authenticity.

**I'd be honored if you left a review to let me know of what you thought (And now that I seem to have at least a bit more time available, I will be able to even answer xD)**

**Wishes, questions, tips and suggestions as well as criticism are welcome.**

**Till next time!**


	14. the end

**I'm sorry for not ending this sooner, but I lacked the needed inspiration and time. Then a new idea for a story made its way into my head and I didn't really think about how to finish this one. **

**But I didn't want to leave it without a proper ending, so here it is. **

**Thank you for reading! **

* * *

_"On the morning of December 14 the weather was of the finest, just as if it had been made for arriving at the Pole. I am not quite sure, but I believe we dispatched our breakfast rather more quickly than usual and were out of the tent sooner, though I must admit that we always accomplished this with all reasonable haste...At three in the afternoon a simultaneous "Halt!" rang out from the drivers. They had carefully examined their sledge-meters, and they all showed the full distance—our Pole by reckoning. The goal was reached, the journey ended._

_We reckoned now that we were at the Pole. Of course, every one of us knew that we were not standing on the absolute spot; it would be an impossibility with the time and the instruments at our disposal to ascertain that exact spot. But we were so near it that the few miles which possibly separated us from it could not be of the slightest importance. After we had halted we collected and congratulated each other. We had good grounds for mutual respect in what had been achieved, and I think that was just the feeling that was expressed in the firm and powerful grasps of the fist that were exchanged._

_After this we proceeded to the greatest and most solemn act of the whole journey—the planting of our flag. Pride and affection shone in the five pairs of eyes that gazed upon the flag, as it unfurled itself with a sharp crack, and waved over the Pole...Five weather-beaten, frost-bitten fists they were that grasped the pole, raised the waving flag in the air, and planted it as the first at the geographical South Pole."_ —Roald Amundsen, _The South Pole._

* * *

That was that. Fitz couldn't believe that their month-long adventure came to an end that fast when he looked back to the fluttering flags of the ceremonial South-Pole.

Their farewell-party from the day before still had his head spinning, as he remembered the amount of alcohol he had consumed. Everyone had been there, saying goodbye to the ten people, including Jemma and Fitz, who were about to leave the next day, early in the morning. They had stayed up all night, talking, drinking and celebrating their short, but good times together.

They were singing karaoke and dancing badly to the music, while a few still had to clarify on who had been the best billiard player. After a few more shots, Jemma was even able to persuade Fitz on singing together, which he clearly regretted now. He had persisted on deciding what song they should perform and when he had drunkenly scrolled through the available ones, he had ended up choosing "Barbie girl" from Aqua.

Now that he thought back, he couldn't have chosen something poorer. He actually wasn't a bad singer, but after watching a video of his performance at breakfast, he knew he sure as hell wasn't good at imitating Barbie.

Thankfully Jemma dragged him away before he could pick out another song.

He didn't get to complain about her persuading him to sing in the first place, because somebody had shouted "Shots", and the next thing he knew was that they were empting 3 vodka-shots at once.

They really thought they could handle the amount of alcohol. Really.

Oh boy, had they been wrong.

His head was buzzing like hell and he could swear that his breakfast was about to come up any second.

Jemma didn't look any better, her hair was a mess and her skin was paler than usual. She smiled though, when she saw him looking at her and squeezed his hand. They were about to take off, leaving the place he never thought he would grow accustomed to for good. Neither of them was sure if they'd ever return. The only thing they knew was that if they ever would, they'd do so, together.

This was the place he had almost died, but this was also the place where Jemma and he had finally found together, in the way he had imagined for a long time now.

After his accident, she had barely left his side and he couldn't really complain about that. At night, she would crawl into his bed, pressing her warm body against his so that they both would fit in the small bed. They did have the chance to move into a "couples-room", equipped with a full-size bed, but they decided against it. If they snuggled up together, there had been enough space for the both of them. Besides, they hadn't really wanted to pack up their things then. They would have had to do that a few weeks later anyway, when they left the station.

And now it really was time to go. They've all said their goodbyes to their friends and colleagues, who would stay behind. Their contracts lasted longer. Sue, Mike and Joshua were one of them. They'd be experiencing another winter at the station.

They did agree to meet up sometime in the future, when all of them had returned home, for a vacation somewhere. Nothing was really set, no year and not even a certain place. This whole agreement was an undefined variable; - Nobody knew what to do with it and in the end, it would just be forgotten. Seemed like they were all just too sad to acknowledge the fact that this was the last time they'd ever see each other again. They had just become friends, and now, they were bound to become strangers again.

The engines started to roar and Jemma grabbed his hand, when they started moving. He looked out of the plane-window and remembered how last week they all tried to take another picture at the South Pole. He smiled thinking about the fun they had together, striking poses and fooling around. And after, they warmed themselves up with Whiskey shots and a drunken game of dodge ball in the gym. Turned out, Fitz wasn't that bad at it when he was the only one who had been able to hold his liquor.

It was one of the best days he ever experienced. And not just because of his colleagues and the alcohol.

When they all returned to their rooms that night, Jemma and him seemed to be a lot less shy. The daily good-night kiss that had usually been just a peck on the lips, turned to snogging pretty quickly.

There were hands and lips everywhere and feather light kisses on the neck that had made his head spin. Her tongue had been very prominent in his mouth, doing things he never even knew were possible. And when they were finally breaking apart, trying to catch their breaths, they both giggled like teenagers.

And as they snuggled up after it, well… let's just say that Jemma had to be the big spoon.

Fitz grinned at the memory. The events of that night had repeated themselves for a few times by now.

"What's so funny?", Jemma asked beside him, doing her well-known eyebrow-thingy. If they wouldn't be in this plane, he'd do it again right now. With the discovery of that sweet spot in Jemma's neck, it wasn't hard to make her kiss him like that.

"Ah… just thinking back to some… good moments, you know." He answered, giving her a smug smile.

She eyed him for a few seconds, before she seemed to realize of what he was referring to. "Ugh, you are terrible, you know that, right? We are about to leave the South Pole! …The South Pole, Fitz! And all you can think about is what we were doing a few nights ago."

"Hey, that's a compliment! That just means that I think you're more interesting than the South Pole!"

She pressed her lips together, slightly annoyed with him when one of their colleagues interrupted their small banter.

"Yeah if you could just say thank you Simmons, that'd be great. I'm trying to sleep off my hangover here and with you two starting your bickering already, I'll be very grumpy to deal with if I am not getting some sleep. Do not forget that we have almost the same way back home," he murmured grumpily from somewhere behind them.

"Oh, sorry Trevor. I didn't know we were talking that loudly." She said, turning around to face him. "We'll keep it down, I promise."

A muttered "Thanks" was all that came back, as their colleague had already closed his eyes again.

"See, it's a compliment." Fitz whispered and Jemma rolled her eyes. "You're not mad, are you?" he added immediately, a look on concern on his face.

She sighed. "No, I am not. And don't ask that after every little discussion we have. When we were just friends you didn't do that either, did you?"

He shook his head. "Guess not. But back then you didn't let me kiss you."

"Aww. Well, I won't stop you now. It's just …. Us. We banter sometimes. That's what we do. When I am mad, I'm sure you'll notice. You always knew in the past, at least."

"Right." He answered and let out a breath of relief.

Their hands found one another right before the plane started to go faster. Their bodies were pressed into their seats and once the plane had reached its maximum speed on the ground, it shot up high into the sky.

Soon enough the Amundsen and Scott station would disappear in the midst of white snow.

Their adventure on the South Pole had ended after these few months, but they both knew, that they had already started a new one.

One that would hopefully last a lifetime.

* * *

A big thanks to everyone of you!

[For those of you who have started reading my other unfinished story _"What they experienced",_ I will try to finish this story too. I just don't know how long it will take me, since I have only half a chapter (that I've written weeks ago) and no plan on how to continue. ]


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